Japanese make-up guru Shu Uemura dies at 79

TOKYO (Reuters) – Shu Uemura, a beautician who parlayed success as a Hollywood make-up artist into an international cosmetics brand under his name, has died aged 79.

The only man in his class at a beauty school in the conservative Japan of the 1950s, Uemura started his career as an assistant on a U.S. movie.

His big opportunity came during the filming of the 1962 movie “My Geisha,” starring Shirley MacLaine, when her make-up artist fell ill and Uemura stood in, his company’s Web site says.

“Upon completion of Ms. MacLaine’s intricate and laborious geisha make-up, Mr. Uemura had transformed the actress’s Caucasian face entirely into a Japanese geisha with Asian features. There was ovation from everyone who witnessed the transformation, including Ms. MacLaine herself,” it says. …

The man made a bitchin’ eyelash curler (or his company did, at least), so I can’t knock Shu Uemura for that, but who knew about the MacLaine faux-geisha connection? So strange to know that the international Uemura legacy was built upon his experience putting a white woman in yellow face.