Johnny & Associates Inc. announced today that its honorary chairperson, Mary Yasuko Fujishima, sister of music mogul and company founder Johnny Kitagawa, died of pneumonia at a hospital in Tokyo on Aug. 14. She was 93 years old.
A funeral service was held with close family members. There are no plans for a memorial service at this time.
Fujishima was born in Los Angeles in 1927. She helped build up her brother’s talent agency, founded in 1962, working on the management side of the business while Kitagawa nurtured some of Japan’s most popular male idol groups, such as SMAP and Arashi, and became a dominant force in the entertainment industry. Kitagawa died on July 9, 2019, after which Fujishima’s eldest daughter, Julie Keiko Fujishima, became company president.