Background
He was the eldest son of Ichikawa Danjūrō XI.
十二代目 市川 團十郎
He was the eldest son of Ichikawa Danjūrō XI.
In 1969, he graduated from Nihon University, and took the name Ichikawa Ebizō X, acting in major roles such as the title character in Sukeroku and Togashi in Kanjinchō.
He is the twelfth kabuki actor to hold the illustrious name Ichikawa Danjūrō. He first appeared on stage in 1953 under his birth name Natsuo Horikoshi, and in 1958 took the name Ichikawa Shinnosuke. He assumed his present name in 1985, appearing as Benkei (again in Kanjinchō).
Though he underwent the formal shūmei naming ceremony at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, the celebrations continued for several months, as is traditional.
His performances that year in New York, Washington District of Columbia and Los Angeles would mark the first (and as of 2006, only) time that a shūmei was celebrated abroad. Active outside Japan, Danjūrō appeared in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Brussels, East Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, and Paris.
In addition, he acted in television roles, and has portrayed Ōoka Tadasuke in Honō no Bugyō Ōoka Echizen no Kami, as well as Tokugawa Mitsukuni and Ashikaga Yoshimasa. Though illness, and subsequent hospitalization, forced Danjūrō to leave the stage for long stretches in 2004-2005, he later returned.
He died of pneumonia in a Tokyo hospital on February 3, 2013 at the age of 66.