Chuck Wilson, 63, is a fitness trainer. But he was — and arguably still is — far more famous as a funny foreigner who speaks in a defiantly casual and blunt manner to TV personality bigwigs.
Costarring with Beat Takeshi, now better known as movie director Takeshi Kitano, and Kyosen Ohashi and Koji Ishizaka in the TV quiz show "Sekai Marugoto How Much" ("Guess How Much the Entire World Is") from 1983 to 1990, Wilson earned a name for himself with his bluntness toward the show's moderator, Ohashi, a veteran of the entertainment business.
"I didn't care about show business. I knew I wasn't going to have a career in showbiz," Wilson, who has spent two-thirds of his life in Japan, said in fluent Japanese. "I agreed to be on TV because they agreed to put a subtitle introducing my gym in Azabu (in Minato Ward, Tokyo) every time I was on the show."