A Waseda University graduate who first worked as a middle-school teacher, Katō entered the Bungakuza theater troupe in 1952, where he both performed and directed stage productions. Transitioning to the screen, he built a prolific film career, appearing in more than one hundred movies and collaborating with such eminent directors as Akira Kurosawa, Shohei Imamura, Kon Ichikawa and Kiriro Urayama. H…
