Acclaimed young actor Yagira Yuya (19) and actress Ellie Toyota (21) are hitched. They filed their marriage registration forms yesterday, Toyota’s birthday, and will hold their wedding ceremony in Tokyo today. The couple, who are both with the same Stardust Promotions management agency, announced their engagement at the beginning of December. Toyota plans to continue her career, though she has a much lower profile than Yagira. In 2004 he became the youngest ever, and the first Japanese, winner of the Best Actor award at the Cannes International Film Festival. His role in the Koreeda Hirokazu movie “Daremo Shiranai” (Nobody Knows) launched a movie career that seemed destined for great heights. After a drug overdose in August 2008 that derailed his career it seemed that success may have come too early, but Yagira got things back on track and even found time to write his first novel. Last year, he starred in “The Shock Labyrinth,” the first feature-length 3D movie made in Japan. His most recent work is the movie “Subete wa Umi ni Naru,” which co-stars Sato Eriko and opens on January 23. Toyota, whose father is British, got her showbiz start in the idol group Snappeas. She made her big screen debut in the 2006 movie “Youkina Gang ga Chikyu wo Mawasu.”
• Actor Okumura Koen died last month, it was revealed yesterday. He was 79. Known for playing a corpse in the movie “O-Soshiki” (Funeral), a role for which he trained himself to hold his breath for several minutes, he ironically died of respiratory failure at a Tokyo hospital on December 24. He was an acclaimed supporting actor on the big screen, perhaps most notably in the movies of director Itami Juzo, in TV dramas and in the theater.