13
Oct
Tony Toyoda
Topic: Family and Friends
Maria’s father passed away on Monday. He was diagnosed with cancer in his lungs and spine about a year ago. At the time his doctors said he had a 50/50 chance of making it another two months to Christmas. But he held on for a year, just long enough to meet Eidan, when Maria brought the boys to Denver last month.
When I first met Tony and Michiko (Maria’s mom) in 1997, I was trying to make conversation and asked, “so why did you leave Japan?” and Michiko responded: “ugh, too many Japanese there!” Those few words speak volumes: they moved to the US in the 1950s, and their story is about as far as you can get from a typical Japanese immigration story.
Until the end of World War II, the Toyoda name was very much associated with the Japanese navy (it was a distant relative, Admiral Toyoda, who led the Japanese navy during the last years of WWII). Tony spent his youth in the Japanese Naval Academy. He became so frustrated with the hazing he received from a couple upper classmen that one day he took off his wooden clogs, wrapped them around his hands, and beat the heck out of them. That got him thrown out of the Academy (which is just as well, considering how the war turned out for Japan).
He and Michiko moved to the US in the 50s. Tony did the crooner circuit, performing in Las Vegas and around the country. The highlights of his career were his appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, and his co-hosting of a Dinah Shore Show Christmas Special. As crooning went out of style in the late 60s, they switched to a traveling tent show, with Japanese dancing girls, Polynesian fire dancers, etc. As they traveled the country, every now and then one of the dancing girls would get pregnant. It was then Tony’s job to find the guy responsible and browbeat him into marrying her (and then he’d make some calls back to Japan and get a replacement girl shipped out). Maria has childhood memories of being the flower girl at these weddings. After doing this too many times she got bored with it, and instead of joyously tossing rice as she went down the isle, she would hurl it in frustration. It turns out that one of the girls settled not far from Denver, so Tony and Michiko had a friend in the area when they settled there a couple years ago (Maria’s sister Yoko also lives in Denver).
After Tony retired from singing, he was still known in the entertainment industry, and he occasionally worked as a movie extra. He had a few lines filmed for the Demi Moore movie Striptease, but they didn’t make the final cut of the film. However, having the lines filmed is sufficient for admission to the Screen Actors Guild and appearing in the film’s credits (which means he has an imdb page). He would always chuckle when his Striptease royalty checks for a couple hundred dollars would show up in the mail twice a year.
Tony fit the classic Gary Cooper archetype of the “strong, silent type.” He spoke rarely, and when he did speak, you listened up. He also had quite a wit: one time when he was about to drive to the airport to pick someone up, Michiko wanted to go with him, but he turned her down: “no, you’d just be dead weight” (it’s the kind of joke you can only get away with saying to someone you love). He was also a wonderful grandfather to Kai. During the two years Tony and Michiko lived with us, we encouraged them to speak Japanese to Kai, so he could start learning the language. In Japanese conversation, it’s very important to politely establish each person’s social status relative to each other: normally you’d refer to yourself as below or equal to the other person. But Tony was teaching Kai to refer to himself in the highest possible form, sort of a “I am the lord of all toddlers.” Maria would always implore him to stop it (as she was imagining Kai getting beat up for it in a Japanese playground), but Tony never did.
Maria is in Denver now with the boys. Tony said he just wanted a barbecue with family and friends, so they’re not having a formal funeral. I’ve asked her to bring back some of the great pictures and promotional materials from Tony’s crooning career, so I scan them (and then I’ll post them here). For now I’ll share some of the pictures that I have.
October 14th, 2005 at 10:09 am
This is a fantastic write up, and he seemed like quite an amzing man. It’s great that Kai got to know him. Granparents are very special people.
Please give Maria our deepest condolences and let her know that she is our thoughts.
And what great pictures. Hopefully we can arrange to see each other again soon.