Iida Chōko (飯田 蝶子) (April 15, 1897 – December 26, 1972) was a Japanese actress. Her real name was Shigehara Tefu. She played working class women and grandmothers, and appeared in more than 300 films. Her husband was cameraman . Biography Early life Iida was born on April 15, 1897 in what is now Asakusa, Tokyo. Though her father was a minor official with the Ministry of Communications, the family didn't have much money, so Iida was sent to live with her maternal grandmother at 2 years old. Iida was the oldest of 5 children, but because of their poverty the children became malnourished and developed nyctalopia. After studying at a private elementary school, Iida entered the Ueno Koto Jogakko with her grandmother's help, and worked at an outdoor exhibition at night to help with the family's finances. She eventually found that she enjoyed working more than school. She stopped attending school for two months until the seasonal exhibition closed in autumn. Career as an actress In 1913 Iida began working at the Matsuzakaya in Ueno. She worked in several positions there, including in the sewing department and as a clerk. In 1919, Iida began writing for an entertainment newspaper company in Nihonbashi. That autumn, , a kabuki actor, put out an ad in the Miyako Shinbun for an actress to perform for a theater called the Asakusa Koen Gekijo. They hired Iida, but she found that all of her roles were of handmaidens. When the theater director died in 1920, the theater was dissolved. Iida applied to work at film studios, but was rejected. Entering Shochiku Kamata In 1922 Iida and a friend from her newspaper days applied to work at the . They originally hired only Iida's friend, but one of Iida's colleagues who worked at Shochiku stepped in and encouraged them to hire her for supporting roles, like maids. In January 1923, Iida officially entered the company. She debuted in the film Shi ni iku tsuma. Her first film that made her famous was Yami o iku, in which she was praised by director Yoshinobu Ikeda for playing a sexually unappealing laborer. Iida then received good reviews and a bonus for her role as an elderly woman in Kiyohiko Ushihara's Jinsei no Ai. She briefly moved to another film studio after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, but soon returned to the Kamata studio in January 1924. Shochiku