HOLLYWOOD -- Talk about carrying coals to Newcastle, how about taking a Japanese-American actress to Tokyo to teach her how to be Japanese.
That happened to Donna Kei Benz for the movie 'The Challenge.'
A second generation American native of Hawaii, Donna doesn't look Japanese. She doesn't exactly look Asian either.
Donna is an authentic exotic. She would mistaken for an alien in any land -- beautiful, dusky-skinned, foreign, mysterious. If anything, one might fantasize the willowly young woman gracing a south seas island.
She has large, luminous brown eyes, long straight black hair that cascades to her waist. Her full mouth is sensuous, her cheekbones pronounced. She is easily visualized in a sarong.
In reality, however, Donna is considerably more prosaic.
She's a dentist's wife, mother of two children and lives in the San Fernando Valley. She is a full-blooded Japanese who traces her family back seven generations to Kyoto where 'The Challenge' was set.
Director John Frankenheimer signed Donna to co-star with Scott-Glenn and Toshiro Mifune after abandoning the notion of hiring a native Japanese girl.
His leading lady had to speak flawless English and for that reason he passed up Yoko Shimada, the beauty who played the feminine lead in 'Shogun.'
Donna spent four months last winter and spring in the land of her ancestors learning to be more Japanese, no easy assignment for a woman who attended the University of Michigan and who doesn't speak Japanese.
'I had to learn how modern Japanese women walk and talk,' Donna said. 'They have distinct mannerisms and body language different from ours. And I had to pick up some Japanese phrases for the film's dialogue.
'I've known how to use chopsticks since I was a child, but I had to learn the formal table etiquette. The most difficult thing was learning to wear a kimono and carry myself as a Japanese.
'Eight layers of clothes are worn under kimonos. They fit so tightly you can't take large steps. They shuffle and mince along pigeon-toed.'
Donna was surprised at the number of women in Kyoto who still wear traditional Japanese kimonos. She found the contrast between the traditionalists and the blue-jeaned, T-shirted modernists astonishing.
She dresses both ways for 'The Challenge,' a sophisticated chop-sockie film, which deals with the clash of ancient and modern Japanese cultures.
Donna wishes her parents had taught her Japanese as a child.
'Mother was ashamed of being Japanese after Pearl Harbor and became as westernized as possible,' Donna said. 'She even changed her name. She and my father were divorced and mother married a Jewish man named Benz.
'I was taught modesty and to hold in my emotions which is a Japanese trait. But that was the extent of the Japanese influence in my life for 18 years.
'I did my best to unlearn my American instincts during the four months in Japan. I also discovered how chauvinistic the Japanese men are. Japanese women are really second-class citizens.
'While I was learning to be Japanese, I spent a great deal of time mastering some of the martial arts.
'I'm not a black belt or anything, but I can handle myself with taekwondo, tae kuan do, aikido, kenjutso and kendo. I used all of them in the picture which gets pretty rough in some places.
'My biggest surprise in Japan was not seeing a single soul who looked like me. Even in Tokyo and Kyoto people mistook me for Filipino, Polynesian or Eurasian. My skin is much darker than the average Japanese.
'My appearance enhances my acting career. I played a black dancer in 'Stir Crazy,' a Chinese dragon lady in 'Hart to Hart' and an Hawaiian in an episode of 'Hawaii-Five O.'
'Most of the parts I play call for Orientals, but I can play American Indians and dozens of other ethnic roles -- I guess just about anything except for the idealized blonde, blue-eyed all-American girl.'
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