east west players

Makoto Iwamatsu, known to TV and movie fans as simply Mako, died of esophageal cancer on July 21, according to this CNN article from Wednesday. He was 72. His death was announced by Tim Dang, the artistic director of East West Players, a theater company that Mako co-founded.

It's interesting that Mako passed away during the same week as Jack Warden, because the two of them played very similar roles in their careers; Mako almost always played either the general, the authoritarian, the soldier, or the wise old sage. Heck, I think he played all four roles on M*A*S*H alone (he played four different guest roles during the series' 11-year run).