The L.A.-born music producer broke industry records, created boybands whose members went on to be TV and film stars, held enormous power in the entertainment business and was dogged by allegations of the sexual abuse of young boys.
Johnny Kitagawa, a controversial and powerful Japanese-American music producer and talent agency founder, died on Tuesday in a Tokyo hospital, after a stroke, at the age of 87. He was hospitalized after collapsing on June 18.
Born John Hiromu Kitagawa in Los Angeles in 1931, he moved back and forth between the U.S. and Japan during his childhood, before serving in the American military during the Korean War and then working at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. At one point in the late 1990s his acts were regularly appearing in 40 television shows weekly in Japan. Kitagawa used his power ruthlessly, punishing anything other than positive coverage and cooperation with boycotts that could stop acts from his stable from appearing in any media in the same group.weekly magazine ran a 10-part series detailing allegations of sexual exploitation from a dozen former members of his agency.
SMAP was Kitagawa's biggest success, becoming stars across Asia and their break-up in 2016 even being commented on in the Japanese parliament.
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