Trained under operatic tenor Charles K.L. Davis, he won several high-profile singing competitions before embarking on a career singing in nightclubs across the U.S. By happenstance, he wound up in Japan during a U.S.O. tour, and ended up working in Toho Studios theatrical division, where he became a popular singer and entertainer nicknamed "The Frank Sinatra of Japan". He eventually moved back to the U.S. after touring with Toho, where he made his screen debut in Samuel Fuller's The Crimson Kimono, a Film Noir that dealt with the taboo subject matters of racism and inter-racial relationships.
Shigeta became known as a rare Asian-American romantic leading man, playing such roles in Bridge to the Sun and Flower Drum Song at a time when such roles were largely reserved for Caucasian actors. He continued acting well into the 2000s, becoming a reliable character actor appearing in the likes of The Yakuza, Die Hard, Mulan, and Takeshi Kitano's Brother (2000).
His films include:
- 1959 The Crimson Kimono as Det. Joe Kojaku
- 1961 Bridge to the Sun as Hidenari "Terry" Terasaki
- 1961 Flower Drum Song as Wang Ta
- 1966 Paradise, Hawaiian Style as Danny Kohana
- 1973 Lost Horizon as To-Lenn
- 1974 The Yakuza as Goro
- 1976 Midway as Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo
- 1988 Die Hard as Joseph Yoshinobu Takagi
- 1998 Mulan as General Li
- 2000 Brother (2000) as Sugimoto
Tropes:
- Bilingual Bonus: He picked up Japanese after living in the country for several years to advance his singing career, and would often pop out Japanese dialogue in his films, notably in The Yakuza.
- Fake Nationality: He played his fair share of Chinese characters, like Wang Ta in Flower Drum Song.
- What Could Have Been: He signed a film contract with Toho Studios while living in Japan, with the intent of appearing in a movie, but it never came to fruition and he wouldn't appear in Japanese-produced film until 1974.
