Yusaku Matsuda

Okay, let me gush for a second: Yusaku Matsuda was one of those actors who walked into frame and the whole room tightened up. I first met him as the doomed Jeans cop in Taiyo ni Hoero, in that death scene, and honestly it ruined me a little. The man could have coasted on those cheekbones and that 183cm of cool, but no, he kept throwing his whole body at every role, the wobbly noir charm of the TV series Tantei Monogatari one moment, the creepily intense tutor in The Family Game the next. Then he muscles into Hollywood as the villain in Black Rain while quietly dying of cancer, and he's gone at 40. Reckless, magnetic, gone too soon, and still talked about decades later. That's the whole legend right there.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Yusaku Matsuda (1949–1989) was a Japanese actor and singer born in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, who rose to fame through his breakout role as the "Jeans Detective" in the Nippon TV drama Taiyō ni Hoero! (1973). Known for his intense, physically committed performances, he became a leading action star of Japanese cinema in the late 1970s and early 1980s, winning Best Actor honors at the Kinema Junpo Awards and the Hochi Film Awards in 1983. He made his Hollywood debut in Ridley Scott's Black Rain (1989), appearing as the villain despite battling terminal bladder cancer, and passed away on November 6, 1989, at the age of 40.

Name (English)

Yusaku Matsuda

Name (Japanese)

松田優作

Reading

まつだゆうさく

Born

September 21, 1949 – November 6, 1989

Origin

Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan

Height

183 cm

Occupation

Actor / Singer

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Ox

Blood type

A

Agency

(portrait rights: Central Arts / character licensing: Office Saku)

Agency history

Bungakuza Acting School (from 1972)
Central Arts (1981–1989)

Active years

1973–1989

High school

Honan High School (night division, graduated)

University

Kanto Gakuin University, Faculty of Literature (withdrew); Bungakuza Acting School (completed 1973)

Debut

1973 — Nippon TV drama Taiyō ni Hoero!, as "Jeans Detective" Shibata Jun

Awards & achievements

• 1983 Kinema Junpo Best Actor (The Family Game, Detective Story)
• 1983 Hochi Film Award Best Actor (The Family Game, Detective Story)
• 1989 12th Japan Academy Award Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Arashi ga Oka, Hana no Ran)
• 1990 13th Japan Academy Award Special Award (posthumous)
• 1990 Yokohama Film Festival Special Jury Award (posthumous)

Timeline

1. 1949Born in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi
2. 1973Broke through as the Jeans Detective in Taiyō ni Hoero!
3. 1975First marriage (to Michiko Matsuda; divorced 1981)
4. 1977Returned to television in Daitokai PART II
5. 1979Starred in Resurrection of the Golden Wolf, establishing himself as an action star
6. 1983Won Kinema Junpo Best Actor and multiple other awards for The Family Game and Detective Story
7. 1983Married Miyuki Matsuda
8. 1985Took on a literary role in Sorekara (And Then), directed by Yoshimitsu Morita
9. 1989Appeared in Hollywood film Black Rain, directed by Ridley Scott
10. 1989Died on November 6 from bladder cancer with lumbar metastasis, age 40

Spouse

Michiko Matsuda (1975–1981, author) / Miyuki Matsuda (1983–1989, actress)

Children

A daughter with his first wife Michiko; with Miyuki: son Ryuhei Matsuda, son Shota Matsuda and daughter Yuki Matsuda

Hobbies

• Jazz listening
• Mahjong

Specialties

• Action
• Physically immersive acting

Works summary

Appearances

165

By year (titles with a known year)

1976: 3, 1978: 2, 1980: 3, 1981: 4, 1985: 3, 1989: 1, 1991: 1, 1997: 5, 1998: 1, 2008: 2, 2009: 1, 2010: 1, 2013: 1, 2014: 1, 2017: 1, 2021: 3, 2022: 1, year unknown: 131

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttp://www.office-saku.com/artists/yusaku_matsuda.html
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/yusaku_matsuda_official/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%BE%E7%94%B0%E5%84%AA%E4%BD%9C
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1344415

Tags

• From Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi
• Actor
• Singer
• Taiyō ni Hoero!
• The Family Game
• Black Rain
• Showa Cinema
• Central Arts

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. Works and profile fields sourced from Wikipedia reflect content as of 2026-08-26. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.