安藤昇 Noboru Ando

Noboru Ando (安藤 昇 And? Noboru, born 1926) is a Japanese film actor known for his yakuza roles. In fact, Ando was a real-life yakuza gang boss before becoming an actor in 1965, when he appeared in a film about himself, Chi to Okite ("Blood and Rules"). He later wrote, produced and starred in a series of films about his life and his former gang, the Ando-gumi. He also notably appeared in several films by Kinji Fukasaku. One clear sign of his past occupation is the large knife scar on his left cheek, the result of a brawl with a Korean gangster as a young man. According to Ando, acting came easily to him as a result of his underworld life: "In Japanese, the only difference between yakuza and yakusha (actor) is one hiragana character," he was quoted in the Japan Times as saying. "All yakuza have to be actors to survive." Credit to: Wikipedia