Of course, the news reports today are filled with the story of the death of Luciano Pavarotti. But another singer of note died today, and it is this singer I want to remember.
Miyoshi Umeki died of complications of cancer Aug. 28 at a nursing home in Licking, MO. Umeki, who I’ll always remember as Mrs. Livingston (the housekeeper in “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” (with Bill Bixby and Brandon Cruz)), was a singer and nightclub performer in postwar Japan. She moved to America in 1955, and after appearances on the Arthur Godfrey show (probably no one reading this remembers him) was cast as Red Buttons’ wife in the 1957 film “Sayonara” — a role for which she won an Oscar.
Umeki is also remembered for her portryal of the young Chinese woman Mei Li in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical “Flower Drum Song.” For this role, she received a Tony nomination as Best Actress in a Musical. She was later in the movie version of the musical.
She retired from acting after the TV series, so I hadn’t heard her name for a while. But surprisingly, her death touches me more than that of the Italian.
But as they say, “That’s all very well, but what are we going to do about the Italian?”
