Born and raised in Japan, Mako moved to the USA after WWII. An architecture student, he got into set design and later acting through some friends in off-Broadway theater and later studied at the Pasadena Playhouse. He co-founded an Asian-American theater company, the East/West Players, with six other actors in 1965 and was noticed by Hollywood shortly thereafter. Mako's first major film role won him an Oscar nomination and remains his most memorable: that of Po-Han, the funny, tragic engine-room attendant and surprise boxing champ in "The Sand Pebbles" (1966), starring Steve McQueen.

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