Shishido Joe was a Japanese actor most recognizable for his intense, eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He appeared in some 300 films but is best known in the West for his performance in the cult film Branded to Kill (1967). In Japan, he is also known by the nickname Joe the Ace, for his popular role in the Western Quick Draw Joe (1961).

Joe Shishido was born in the Kita Ward of Osaka, Japan. He had two older brothers, one younger sister and a younger brother who also became an actor under the name Go Eiji. Shishido attended schools in Tokyo and Miyagi. In 1952, he graduated from high school and enrolled in the theatre course at Nihon University. Two years later, he auditioned for the Nikkatsu Company's New Face contest. He was one of 21 selected from 8,000 applicants. Shishido dropped out of school and began working for Nikkatsu, appearing in small film roles.

In 1954, Joe Shishido signed on as a contract player at Nikkatsu. Studio bosses encouraged Shishido to change his name, as popular tales of the samurai Miyamoto Musashi contained a villain named Shishido, and they were trying to model him into a romantic lead. Shishido refused. His first major role was in Keisatsu Nikki (1955), in which he played a young patrolman who challenges a police chief in a kendo (bamboo sword fighting) match.

Displeased with his middling success in melodramas and "blandly handsome features", Shishido underwent cheek augmentation surgery in 1957, increasing the size of his cheekbones. His altered look has been described both as "ruggedly handsome", and also as chipmunk-like. Afterward, he began getting bigger parts, predominantly as villains in action movies. Two of his biggest roles in the late 1950s and early 1960s were opposite Kobayashi Akira in the Wataridori series and Akagi Keiichiro in the Kenju Buraicho series.

Though he worked predominantly in comic action roles, Shishido also gained a tough-guy loner image in such films as Suzuki Seijun's Youth of the Beast (1963), in which he played an ex-cop who infiltrates two rival yakuza gangs.

Nikkatsu action movies began to lose favor through the late 1960s and production was scaled back resulting in fewer jobs for Shishido. He began taking roles with other companies and on television, which were primarily of a comic nature. He also starred in Nikkatsu "new action" films such as the all-star vehicle Yakuza Bird of Passage: Bad Guys' Work (1969), with Kobayashi Akira and Watari Tetsuya, and Bloody Battle (1971). In 1971, Shishido ended his contract and left the failing company, which had transitioned into softcore roman porno ("romantic pornography") films in order to stay profitable.

Joe Shishido continued to work in television and appeared in films for other studios such as the fifth installment of Toei's highly popular post-war yakuza series, Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode (1974). By this time yakuza films had begun to lose favor with the public and Shishido ceased appearing in those types of roles. Over the next 20 years, he focused predominately on television with occasional film appearances including Exchange Students (1982), Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast (1986), and A Mature Woman (1994).

On 4 February 2013, his house was destroyed in a fire. He was not at home at the time and no one was injured.

Shishido was found in his home on January 21, 2020, having died on January 18, 2020. He was survived by his three children.

(Source: Wikipedia) Edit Biography