Kataoka Hidetarō II

Kataoka Hidetarō II, born in Osaka in September 1941 and died in May 2021, was a kabuki actor of the Matsushimaya line who first stepped on stage at Kyoto's Minamiza in 1946 and was designated a Living National Treasure for supporting roles in kabuki; he was also decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette. Kabuki is an art measured in decades of daily repetition, in a name inherited and carried, in a presence that audiences feel but databases cannot record. A career like his does not generate the kind of debris — chart positions, box office, viral clips — that Western-style reference entries are built to catch. The Living National Treasure designation is the clearest trace of a lifetime's standing within the form, and more than seventy years on stage is the rest of the story.

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Name (English)

Kataoka Hidetarō II

Name (Japanese)

二代目 片岡秀太郎

Reading

にだいめ かたおか ひでたろう

Born

September 13, 1941 – May 23, 2021

Origin

Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan

Height

162 cm

Occupation

actor / kabuki actor

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Snake

Awards & achievements

• The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%89%87%E5%B2%A1%E7%A7%80%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E%20(2%E4%BB%A3%E7%9B%AE)
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11569767

Tags

• Osaka Prefecture
• actor
• kabuki actor

Last updated

September 25, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.