Godzilla goes down

[besilarius]

The man in the Godzilla suit has passed away at 88 years old.... Haruo Nakajima, who played iconic movie monster Godzilla in 12 movies and other giant monster films too, including the original GODZILLA (1954).

[mirth]

[Sir Slash]

R.I.P. Haruo. Loved watching you stomp the pooh out of Tokyo when I was a kid. Especially the little, tiny trains that could never stop in time to avoid the Godzilla-ankles. 

[JasonPratt]

He not only helped epitomize the horror of the original G, but segued smoothly into the acrobatic grumpy hero G (including the infamous victory dance from GvMonsterZero.)

Two other G-suit actors remain, each from one of the other series (Heisei and Millennium). Not counting other kaiju suit actors for the other monsters of course.

[JasonPratt]

Literally the first theatrical film I saw as a kid: Godzilla vs. Megalon. (At a drive-in!) G vs Gigan (known in the states as G on Monster Island) came soon after.

But Dad used to watch Godzilla and Kung Fu movies at night when it was his turn to give me a bottle, so also among my first movies ever.

[JasonPratt]

A fine tribute to Nakajima-sensei.