Daily Archives: May 23, 2007

Johnny Depp (43), Orlando Bloom (30) and other members of the cast and crew of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” landed in Japan yesterday. Hundreds of fans crowded the arrivals lobby at Narita Airport from early morning, divided into two main groups depending on their loyalty to one star or the other. They numbered in their thousands by the time Bloom arrived at 6:15pm. Depp showed up in his private jet three hours later. Both stars took their time passing through the lobby allowing fans, some in tears, to give presents and take photos. The third episode of the hugely successful movie trilogy opens worldwide on May 25, though it has its Asia premiere tonight at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo.

The wife of actor/talento Kishibe Shiro (57) died last month of sudden heart failure, it was revealed yesterday. She was just 43. Kishibe awoke on the morning of April 6 and hurt himself getting out of bed. He went downstairs where his wife Saori told him to go back to bed and lie down for a while. When he awoke an hour later he went downstairs only to discover his wife collapsed on the floor. He tried to resuscitate her as he waited for an ambulance but she was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. In the last year she had complained several times of difficulty breathing but had refused to see a doctor. Kishibe is said to be wasting away at his Yokohama home in a state of shock and unable to speak. The couple had been married since 1994. Kishibe rose to fame as a member of the 60s group The Tigers and later playing the water sprite in the popular 70s TV series “Saiyuki” (shown abroad as “Monkey”, and Kishibe’s character was known as Sandy). He first married in 1971 and had two children. Poor financial decisions led him to declare bankruptcy in the late 90s, but it was this image that became his gimmick after his return to showbiz a few years later.

• Police recently nabbed talento Uehara Sakura (30) for speeding and driving with an expired license, it was revealed yesterday. She was given a speeding ticket late on the night of May 15 when police stopped her for driving over 80km/h in a 60km/h zone on a bypass in Tokyo. She said she hadn’t realized that her license expired at the end of April. She has already renewed her license and paid the fines. In typical fashion, TV Asahi will either cut scenes including Uehara from today’s edition of “Ai no Apron” or include a subtitle to say the show was filmed before the incident.

• Actress and former idol singer Minamino Yoko (39) has a new love in her life. She and creative director Yanai Michihiko (43) first met last September while he was directing the video for Nagasawa Masami’s debut single, the theme tune for a TV drama reprisal of a popular 80s movie. Minamino became a star back in the mid-80s due to her role in a similar drama series, “Sukeban Deka II”. Yanai is a musician and has been the creative force behind such TV ad campaigns as Tower Records’ “No Music, No Life”, Fuji TV’s “Kikkake wa, Fuji Terebi” and Shiseido’s “Uno”.