Masaichi Nagata

Masaichi Nagata (永田 雅一, Nagata Masaichi, 21 January 1906 – 24 October 1985) was a Japanese film producer and baseball executive. Born in Kyoto, Nagata attended the Ōkura Kōtō Shōgyō Gakkō (now Tokyo Keizai University), but left before graduating. He joined the Nikkatsu studio in 1925 and, after working as a location manager, rose to become head of production at the Kyoto studio. Experiencing conflicts with the Nikkatsu president, he left the company in 1934, taking many Nikkatsu stars with him, to form Daiichi Eiga. While short-lived, that studio created such masterpieces as Kenji Mizoguchi's Sisters of the Gion (1936) and Osaka Elegy (1936). When Daiichi Eiga folded, Nagata became head of the Kyoto studio of Shinkō Kinema until the government reorganized the industry during World War Two. Against a government plan to combine the fiction film companies into two studios, Nagata fought hard for the alternative option of creating a third studio. His efforts resulted in the creation of...