Miyoshi Umeki, a Japanese-born singer and actress who became the first Asian performer to win an Academy Award, for “Sayonara” (1957), distinguished herself onstage in “Flower Drum Song” and played a ...

Growing up on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, Miyoshi Umeki was obsessed with American pop music and dreamed of making it to the United States after World War II. She practiced singing with ...

Miyoshi Umeki, the Japanese-born singer and actress who became the first Asian performer to win an Academy Award, for her touching role as Red Buttons’ wife in the 1957 film “Sayonara,” has died. She ...

Actress Miyoshi Umeki, who won an Oscar for her performance as the doomed wife of an American serviceman in “Sayonara” and later starred in the Broadway musical “Flower Drum Song,” has died of cancer.

Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for her role in the 1957 romantic drama Sayonara, has died of cancer. She was 78. Umeki began her career as a nightclub singer in Japan and ...

TOKYO -- Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Oscar, died Aug. 28 at a nursing home in Licking, Mo. She was 78. By Julian Ryall, The Associated Press TOKYO — Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win ...