TOKYO (TR) – The spread of the novel coronavirus has changed industries and impacted the lives of millions in unforeseen ways.
Yuko Ogasawara is no exception. Since becoming an adult video (AV) actress four years ago, she had enjoyed steady work until the onset of pandemic.
“I haven’t been to a shoot since last fall,” she tells weekly tabloid Shukan Shincho (Aug. 13-20).
The pandemic seems to be the only thing capable of hitting pause on her career, which is notable considering she is 84 years old. “I’ve been shooting every year since I became 81,” she adds.
Dubbed “the world’s oldest porn star,” Ogasawara is pushing the limits of the genre known as jukujo, meaning “mature woman” — and calling to quits does not appear to be an option.
“I want to keep working,” she says. “The [production] company tells me that [the down time is continuing] due to the coronavirus, but I’m prepping my body so I can shoot tomorrow.”
Staying in shape is important. “Calisthenics are indispensable because they require postures that ordinary people do not regularly do,” says Ogasawara, who adds that she tries to stretch her spine when walking.
“I was thinking, ‘Tokyo could be done’
Ogasawara was born in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture. When she was
young, she moved from place to place as required by the insurance company employing her father.
Once World War II began, the family moved to the home of her father’s family in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture. “Due to rice shortages, we ate radishes and squash,” she remembers.
She also recalls an accident in which her head got sprayed with the insecticide DDT, which turned her head white. “We had no bath, so I washed my body in the river where the cows bathed.”
While in Yamagata, she saw B29 bombers soaring overhead for Tokyo. “I was thinking, ‘Tokyo could be done.’ Then, while still in Tsuruoka at the age of 10, I heard [Japanese Emperor Hirohito] announce on the Jewel Voice Broadcast that the war was over.”
“I lived without freedom”
After graduating from a junior college in Tokyo, Ogasawara worked for the same insurance company employing her father. It was there that she met her husband, who was her first romantic partner.
Her husband played on the football team at Kyoto University. They married when she was 24 and had three children. But it was a struggle.
“He was a tough husband. Over the 35 years until he died at the age of 59, he never once let me go out for a drink. I lived without freedom.”
Yet she tells Shincho that she loved her husband, while adding that she began drinking regularly after he passed.
“Handsome young men”
Ogasawara’s path to the AV industry was not direct. At the age of 61, she opened a “snack” hostess club in Tokyo. One of her female customers at the club, which has since closed, works as a freelancer in the industry doing hair styling and make-up.
The customer says, “An employee of a production company for jukujo films once said to me, ‘If you know a good person [to appear as an actress], let me know.”
The customer mentioned Ogasawara, who was skeptical at first. However, that changed after she visited a shoot and noticed her potential male counterparts were “handsome young men.”
Ogasawara decided that it was an offer she could not refuse. “I told my oldest son, ‘Isn’t it great to stay young?'”
“What happens in life happens”
In her debut, released in 2016, she stars as a housewife who endures four sex sessions with her husband per day. She has appeared in about 10 other films since.
Ogasawara attributes her longevity to her past. “The number of people who lived through the war is getting smaller and smaller,” she tells Shincho. “I have a strong heart because I’ve been through hard times.”
She turns 85 in October.
“What happens in life happens — anything goes,” she says, “whether it is the coronavirus or work in the AV industry; they are the same.”