Tokyo-born Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, voted Japan's most popular TV personality for five years running, studied opera singing at Tokyo College of Music but became an actress, soon winning a prestigious award for her radio and TV work. She spent 1972 in New York, studying acting and writing From New York with Love. She hosted "Tetsuko's Room," Japan's first daily TV talk show, which was awarded the highest TV prize.
Devoted to welfare, she brought America's National Theater of the Deaf to Japan, acting with them in sign language. The Totto Foundation, financed by her book royalties, professionally trains deaf actors. Author of Pandas and I, she is also a conservationist with a longtime interest in the Giant Panda. In 1984 she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.
