Niwa Mariko, the wife of actor Okawa Hashizo, who passed away 41 years ago, and his second son, actor Niwa Sadahito, appeared on Kuroyanagi Tetsuko's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi), which aired on October 31st. They talked about the last words Hashizo spoke to Mariko, as well as his diverse hobbies during his lifetime.
Hashizo passed away at the age of 55. "I tried so hard to be a good wife, and it paid off because three days before he passed away he told me, 'Mariko is my one and only treasure.'" "Those words are why I still cherish her so much, and why he said those things to me," she says, recalling the incident and feeling more lifted.
Between filming, Hashizo would spin a potter's wheel in the waiting room at the studio, creating pottery. "I felt like a potter," says Sadahito. Hashizo's flower vase, which he brought to the studio, "leaks. It's amateur pottery, so the water leaks and it doesn't work as a vase," he laughs. He also painted pictures. He liked to paint pine trees and camellias.
Hashizo apparently bought a lot of stones when he went to Washington, D.C., and brought them back home. He apparently set up a polishing machine in the waiting room and polished the stones himself, making necklaces and rings for his wife. "I worked hard at it," Mariko recalls, "and doing things alone was my hobby. Since I have a job, things I could do alone were my hobbies." The staff apparently said that he sometimes worked in the dressing room wearing Zenigata Heiji's costume.
