Born Mako Iwamatsu in Kobe, Japan. Born and raised in Japan, Mako moved to the US after WW II. An architecture student, he got into set design and later acting through some friends in off-Broadway theater and later studied at the Pasadena Playhouse. He co-founded an Asian-American theater company, the East/West Players, with six other actors in 1965 and was noticed by Hollywood shortly thereafter. Mako's first major film role won him an Oscar® nomination and remains his most memorable: that of Po-Han, the funny, tragic engine-room attendant and surprise boxing champ in THE SAND PEBBLES (1966), starring Steve McQueen. He was nominated for Broadway's 1976 Tony® Award as Best Actor (Musical) for "Pacific Overtures." A martial arts expert, Mako later appeared in many standard-issue action films such as ARMED RESPONSE (1986), SILENT ASSASSINS (1988) and THE PERFECT WEAPON (1991), and played many Hawaiians onscreen, as in -- appropriately enough -- THE HAWAIIANS (1970) and the TV series "Hawaiian Heat" (1984). He played Akiro the wizard in Arnold Schwarzenegger's two CONAN extravaganzas, but his more interesting roles were in such offbeat items as TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM (1988); THE WASH (1988), about the effects of divorce on a Japanese-American family; and AN UNREMARKABLE LIFE (1989), as a Chinese-American garage owner who disrupts the lives of two elderly sisters. More recent credits include ROBOCOP 3 and RED SUN RISING (both 1993), SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET (1997) and the role of Admiral Yamamoto in PEARL HARBOR (2001).  Nominated for Supporting Actor 1966: THE SAND PEBBLES 1 nomination