Background
Masaichi Nagata was born on the 21st of January, 1906, in Kyoto, Japan.
永田 雅一
Masaichi Nagata was born on the 21st of January, 1906, in Kyoto, Japan.
Nagata graduated from in 1922. He also attended the Ōkura Kōtō Shōgyō Gakkō (now Tokyo Keizai University), but left before graduating.
Masaichi Nagata entered Nikkatsu Motion Picture Company in 1924 and served successively as chief of Scenario, General Affairs, Planning and Production departments. Experiencing conflicts with the Nikkatsu president, he left the company in 1934, taking many Nikkatsu stars with him, to form Daiichi Eiga. While short-lived, that studio created such masterpieces as Kenji Mizoguchi's Sisters of the Gion in 1936 and Osaka Elegy in 1936.
When Daiichi Eiga folded, Nagata became head of the Kyoto studio of Shinko Kinema until the government reorganized the industry during World War Two. He became the controller of the Nikkatsu Motion Picture Company in 1941. He served as chief of the Production Department and managing director of Dai-Nippon Eiga Company in 1942.
Against a government plan to combine the fiction film companies into two studios, Nagata fought hard for the alternative option of creating a third studio. His efforts resulted in the creation of the Daiei Motion Picture Company, where he first served as an executive. He rose to become president in 1947 and, apart from a brief period when he was purged by Occupation authorities, remained in that position until 1971. Nagata also produced such renowned films as Mizoguchi's Ugetsu in 1953 and Sansho the Bailiff in 1954 as well as Tokyo, which was entered into the 10th Berlin International Film Festival.
Due to the decline of the film industry, and Nagata's extravagant expenditures, Daiei went bankrupt in 1971, but he continued as an independent producer for some years after that. He produced more than 160 films during his career. During the age when many Japanese film studios owned professional baseball teams, Nagata served as the owner first of the Daiei Stars, and then of the Daimai Orions when the Stars merged with the Mainichi Orions in 1958. He promoted the two-league system, helped build Tokyo Stadium, and became the first president of the Pacific League in Japan.