Actress Sugita Kaoru (41) is in trouble yet again, according to the Josei Jishin women’s weekly. The latest episode in her off-screen antics is an affair with an older married man with children. Late one night earlier this month, she was seen having a lover’s tiff with the man on a bridge in central Tokyo. Clearly drunk, she was screaming at the man for having slept with his wife. The pair then went to a bar where they made up, kissed and ended up at a love hotel. Sugita admits that she was drunk at the time and has tried to shrug off the incident, saying “I have no memory of it. I went into the love hotel because I thought it was a castle.” The man is described as in his 50s and an employee of a major media company. The former child star has long had a reputation as a drinker and playgirl. Single until last year, she was often cited as an example of a “make-inu” (lit. loser dog) who could never find happiness in life. She took everyone by surprise when she married a rich heir in March after a whirlwind relationship, instantly transforming into a “celeb” wife. But the marriage lasted only a few months and they divorced in August amidst accusations of violence and infidelities by Sugita.
• Former folk singer Takada Mari jumped to his death from his apartment building yesterday afternoon. He was 59. The suicide came days after he was released on bail having caused a traffic accident on September 11 – driving his scooter while drunk, he hit a woman and caused serious injuries including a fractured skull. Residents of his apartment building in Iruma City, Saitama Prefecture, heard a loud noise around 4pm yesterday. They found his body face down on the asphalt at the foot of the building’s staircase. He was wearing a shoulder bag which contained a suicide note saying simply that he wanted to die. In the early 1970s, he was a member of the folk trio “Aoi Sankakujogi” that had a million-selling hit with the TV drama theme song “Taiyo ga Kureta Shiki”. After the group broke up in 1973, Takada had a brief solo singing career before running an izakaya. But only last month, the trio took the first step toward a planned comeback, performing together on the NTV 24-hour TV marathon. A shocked Nishiguchi Kumiko (55), the trio’s vocalist, could only speculate that Takada’s suicide was out of a sense of responsibility for having ruined their plans with his drunk-driving arrest.
• Composer Ichikawa Shosuke died yesterday of liver failure at a Tokyo hospital. He was 73. Since his debut in 1961, he composed over 3,000 songs, most notably for Minato Harumi. In 1996, he was awarded the Purple Ribbon Medal for his contribution to the arts.