Yoko Tani, nascuda Itani Yōko (París, França, 2 d’agost de 1928 - París, França, 19 d’abril de 1999), va ser una actriu i animadora japonesa d'origen francès.

Yōko Tani (Yoko Itani) est une actrice japonaise d'expression française, née le 2 août 1928 à Paris 16e, où elle meurt le 19 avril 1999.

Yōko Tani est la fille de l'économiste japonais Zenichi Itani et de la princesse Taeko Inotani (secrétaire d'Oku Mumeo). Sa grand-mère maternelle, Maseko, servit de modèle à un célèbre tableau de Kiyokata Kaburagi et son arrière-arrière-grand-père maternel est l'érudit confucéen Egi Gakusui.

Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Yōko Tani entame une carrière cinématographique en France, notamment autour de la bande de Marcel Carné, son «second papa». C'est dans son entourage qu'elle épouse le comédien Roland Lesaffre.

Elle part tourner successivement en Angleterre, aux États-Unis, en Allemagne, en Italie et deux fois au Japon. Ces productions étrangères lui offrent ses rôles les plus importants, notamment auprès de Dirk Bogarde dans le film britannique de Ralph Thomas Le vent ne sait pas lire (1958), et surtout dans le grand succès que fut Les Dents du diable de Nicholas Ray, où elle est la femme Inuit d'Anthony Quinn (1960).

Elle tient également le rôle de la geisha qui enseigne son art à Shirley MacLaine dans Ma Geisha de Jack Cardiff (1962). Shirley MacLaine fait appel à elle pour jouer dans deux épisodes de la série télévisée Shirley's World (1971).

Elle aurait inspiré à Roger Leloup le personnage de l'aventurière Yoko Tsuno.

Devenue la compagne de Roger Laforest, principal actionnaire de Bic, elle s'attache à sa région bretonne, les Côtes-d'Armor. Le couple participe notamment financièrement à la restauration de l'abbaye de Beauport, monument historique classé en cours de déshérence, situé à Paimpol. Avec le Conservatoire du littoral, nouveau propriétaire des lieux, un programme ambitieux peut être monté dès 1993.

Décédée d'un cancer, elle est inhumée à Binic, non loin de sa résidence de vacances sur la pointe de Guilben (Paimpol).

Source: Article "Yōko Tani" de Wikipédia en français, soumis à la licence CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Yoko Tani (谷洋子, Tani Yōko, 2 August 1928 – 19 April 1999) was a French-born Japanese actress and nightclub entertainer.

Tani was born in Paris. Her birth name was Itani Yōko (猪谷洋子). She has occasionally been described as 'Eurasian', 'half French', 'half Japanese' and even, in one source, 'Italian Japanese', all of which are incorrect.

French records (1958) show that her father and mother—both Japanese—were attached to the Japanese embassy in Paris, with Tani herself conceived en route during a shipboard passage from Japan to Europe in 1927 and subsequently born in Paris the following year, hence given the name Yōko (洋子), one reading of which can mean "ocean-child.". Tani would later play a diplomat's daughter in Piccadilly Third Stop.

According to Japanese sources, the family returned to Japan in 1930, when Yoko would still have been a toddler, and she did not return to France until 1950 when her schooling was completed. Given that there were severe restrictions on Japanese travelling outside Japan directly after World War II, this would have been an unusual event; however, it is known that Itani had attended an elite girls' school in Tokyo (Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School, currently Ochanomizu University Senior High School), and then graduated from Tsuda University. She subsequently secured a Catholic scholarship to study aesthetics at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) under Étienne Souriau.

Once back in Paris, Tani found little interest in attending university (although by her own account she persevered for two years despite understanding hardly anything that was being said). Instead, she developed a more compelling attraction to the cabaret, the nightclub, and the variety music-hall, where, setting herself up as an exotic oriental beauty, she quickly established a reputation for her provocative "geisha" dances, which generally ended with her slipping out of her kimono. It was here she was spotted by Marcel Carné, who took her into his circle of director and actor-friends, including Roland Lesaffre, whom she was later to marry. As a result, she began to get bit parts in films—starting as (perhaps predictably) a Japanese dancer, in Gréville's Le port du désir (1953–1954, released 1955)—and on the stage, with a role as Lotus Bleu in la Petite Maison de Thé (French adaptation of The Teahouse of the August Moon) at the Théâtre Montparnasse, 1954–1955 season. ...

Source: Article "Yoko Tani" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.