Born in Kurume, Fukuoka, Fujita moved to Tokyo after high school and, despite failing university exams, entered film through director Takuji Furumi, first as an extra and later as an audio engineer before returning to acting at Toho in 1939. He quickly rose from minor parts to leads, gaining national attention with Akira Kurosawa’s debut Sanshiro Sugata (1943) and cementing his rugged hero image i…
