Lane Nakano, 80; Prominent Japanese American Singer and Actor in Film ‘Go for Broke1’

Lane Nakano, who co-starred in the 1951 film “Go for Broke!,” the dramatic story of the Japanese American soldiers who fought in Europe during World War II, has died. He was 80.

A Studio City resident, Nakano died April 28 in a Sherman Oaks hospital after a long bout with emphysema, his family said.

He was a prominent singer in the Japanese American community in his native Los Angeles after World War II when “Go for Broke!” writer-director Robert Pirosh saw him perform and recruited him for the MGM movie.

Nakano, who had played a bit part as a rickshaw driver in the 1949 movie “Tokyo Joe,” suddenly found himself playing the lead Japanese American role of Sam in the film about the highly decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The movie starred Van Johnson as a bigoted Army lieutenant from Texas who undergoes a change in attitude after being assigned to lead and train the volunteer Japanese American unit.

Nakano was ideal casting for the film: He had served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, volunteering after he and his family were taken from their home in Boyle Heights to Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

After serving in France and Italy, Nakano returned to Los Angeles, where he became a fixture as a singer on the local Japanese American social circuit.

Although he continued acting after “Go for Broke!,” Nakano never again had such a prominent role in a major film.

He starred in “Three Weeks of Love,” a 1965 American film shot in Japan and Hong Kong, but mostly he had small parts in films such as King Vidor’s 1952 film “Japanese War Bride.”

Nakano also had small roles in episodes of TV shows such as “Hawaiian Eye” and “Route 66.”

After retiring from acting and singing -- he once sang at the Hollywood Bowl -- in the late 1960s, he had a long career in the aluminum awning and greenhouse businesses in Los Angeles.

He is survived by his wife, Fumi; two sons, Dean and Desmond; a brother, Frank; and two sisters, May Okamoto and Lucy Wada.