Tagawa died surrounded by his family in Santa Barbara from complications due to a stroke, his manager, Margie Weiner, confirmed on Thursday.

“Cary was a rare soul: generous, thoughtful, and endlessly committed to his craft,” she said in an email. “His loss is immeasurable. My heart is with his family, friends, and all who loved him.”

Tagawa’s decades of film and TV roles truly got off the ground in 1987 when he appeared in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning film “The Last Emperor.” Since then, he appeared in such films as “Pearl Harbor,” “Planet of the Apes” and “License to Kill.”

Tagawa was raised mostly in the US South while his Hawaii-born father was assigned to US mainland Army bases. He lived in Honolulu and on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for a while.

Tagawa’s father met his mother while stationed in Japan, Tagawa told Honolulu Magazine in 2004. His parents named him after Cary Grant and his brother after Gregory Peck, he said.

His mother, Ayako, had been a stage actor in Japan, according to the Honolulu weekly newspaper Midweek. Tagawa said she asked him not to pursue acting because there weren’t many good roles for Asians.

He eventually began an acting career at age 36 after being a celery farmer, limo driver, pizza supply truck driver and photojournalist, he said.
“The good news for Asian actors and Hollywood is that it’s better than it’s ever been, but the bad news is that it hasn’t changed that much,” he told Midweek in 2005. “The opportunities haven’t increased that much, but commercially there’s more exposure.”

Tagawa played the Baron in “Memoirs of a Geisha,” a 2005 movie based on the bestselling novel chronicling a young girl’s rise from poverty in a Japanese fishing village to life in high society.

Some critics said the movie lacked authenticity, but Tagawa said it was unrealistic to expect a fictional work written and directed by Americans to fully reflect Japanese style and sensitivities.

“What did they expect? It wasn’t a documentary,″ Tagawa told The Associated Press in 2006. “Unless the Japanese did the movie, it’s all interpretation.″

Tagawa told the AP that he studied various martial acts but left because he wasn’t into fighting or competition.

Instead, he developed a system he called Ninjah Sportz, which incorporated martial arts as a training and healing tool. He worked with professional athletes like World Boxing Council light flyweight champion Brian Viloria and advised members of the University of Hawaii football team.

In 2008, Tagawa pleaded guilty in a Honolulu court to a petty misdemeanor charge of harassing a girlfriend. She had bruises to her legs, police said at the time.

His attorney said he took full responsibility for the case from the beginning and made no excuses.