Today's Birthdays

one click shows all of today's celebrity birthdays

Browse All Birthdays

43,625    Actors
27,931    Actresses
4,867    Composers
7,058    Directors
842    Footballers
221    Racing drivers
925    Singers
9,111    Writers

Get FamousLikeMe on your website
One line of code gets FamousLikeMe on your website. Find out more.

Subscribe to Daily updates


Add to Google

privacy policy



Famous Like Me > Actress > H > Hitomi

Profile of Hitomi on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Hitomi  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 15th February 1967
   
Place of Birth: Osaka, Japan
   
Profession: Actress
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
A popular picture of hitomi from her album 'Love Life'


The title of this article is shown beginning with a capital letter due to technical restrictions. The correct title is hitomi.

hitomi (ヒトミ), professional name of Hitomi Furuya (古谷仁美 Furuya Hitomi, born January 26, 1976) is a famous Japanese singer and musician. hitomi is known for her distinctively high voice, sexiness, and unusual fashion sense (although she has matured considerably over the past couple of years). Her professional name, hitomi, which she adopted prior to her debut as an avex recording artist in 1994, is completely in lowercase.

Biography

Born in Tochigi, Japan (but raised in Kawasaki, Kanagawa), hitomi got her big break while auditioning for a modeling gig, where she met eminent music producer Tetsuya Komuro. In the following year, November of 1994, she made a CD single debut titled "Let's Play Winter" from avex trax. Since then, hitomi has written most of her own lyrics. She has also performed covers, an example being the Bananarama hit "Venus" that she performed an English-language cover of recently, recorded on her June 2005 single, Japanese Girl.

While the first two singles, Let's Play Winter and WE ARE "LONELY GIRL" were considerable failures, her third single CANDY GIRL was used as the theme for a Kodak CM, and secured a Top 20 spot on the Japanese Oricon music chart. Subsequent singles "By Myself" and "Busy Now" established hitomi, barely out of her teens, as a major figure in Japanese entertainment.

Komuro and hitomi went their separate ways in 1999. Though the reasons have never been explained, it is believed that hitomi wanted more creative control over her music and image and was tired of being treated as a second-tier artist by Komuro. The split was apparently amicable, however, and in 2002, hitomi teamed up with Komuro once again for the SongNation project, a various-artists compilation intended to raise funds for the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. hitomi contributed lyrics and vocals for the song "My Planet."

Many of her songs have been featured on a wide range of products. Examples include "I am," which served as an opening song for the popular anime InuYasha, "kimi no tonari," which was the theme song for a PSX video game Persona II, and "IS IT YOU?" was used as a theme song for a popular FujiTV drama series dekichatta kekkon. In addition, hitomi is a perennial favourite of clothes, cosmetics and accessories brands like Trussardi and Gillette for her modelling experience, photogenic features, and slender figure, despite being a married mother of two. hitomi is currently the spokesperson for Gillette Venus shaver in Japan and has visited Hawaii to film the latest commercial on air in Japan.

hitomi spent most of 2001/2002 dogged by allegations that she was a lesbian, and in a secret relationship with another Japanese pop singer, Yoko Yamaguchi. Both hitomi and Yamaguchi have always denied the allegations, though hitomi is now able to see it in a more humorous light. Commenting about it in a September 2005 interview, hitomi joked: "Of course Yoko and I were angry about it - who wouldn't? Instead of being called bisexuals, we were thought to be 'merely' lesbian!"

hitomi married an advertising firm employee in the autumn of 2002, shortly after wrapping up her Huma-Rhythm Live Tour 2002, causing the rumors to subside. hitomi had announced to her fans that she had tied the knot through her fan club, No!Cut. Though, hitomi has recently admitted that she has been having arguments with her husband, but they have been working it out.

hitomi gave birth to mixed twins in May 2003; she did not release any details to the Japanese press, but disclosed to her fans (through her fan club, No!Cut) that their names were Sumire (her daughter) and Toru (her son), and that Sumire was the older of the two by 69 seconds. Both of her children are named after characters in Haruki Murakami novels (see Trivia); Toru is named after the protagonist of the acclaimed The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Sumire is named after the heroine of Sputnik Sweetheart, which is not as well-regarded both in and outside of Japan, but which hitomi apparently likes better; asked in a December 2004 interview to name her biggest hope of the coming year, hitomi said that she would like to play the role of Sumire in a stage or film adaptation of the novel, 'before she got too old' (in the novel, Sumire is an aspiring novelist in her early twenties).

hitomi was largely out of the public eye until 2004, when she released a new studio album, Traveler. The concert tour she subsequently embarked upon was a huge success, and she played to packed arenas at almost every stop. Her popularity came as a big surprise, considering that she is one of the oldest performers in Japanese pop, had spent more than a year out of the limelight, and was married, which would tend to hurt any Japanese pop entertainer's career, but was thought to be especially damaging to one built on sex appeal, like hitomi's. hitomi's 2004 "Traveler Live Tour" was the most successful concert tour undertaken in Japan that year, and the Excite search portal dedicated a special page to her. In fact, hitomi's new niche as a married mother in Japanese pop has won her many new fans from married women in their late 20s and early 30s in Japan, for whom she has almost become an unofficial representative.

hitomi caused consternation among fans in August 2005 when she apparently hinted in an interview given to An An magazine that she was planning to retire. However, she quickly moved to dispel their fears. hitomi did not deny saying any of the quotes attributed to her, including a remark that went " I would be very surprised to see myself where I presently am this time next year", but claimed that they were taken out of context. She proceeded to assert, in her own fan club publication, that she would not quit music as long as the American performer Madonna (her own idol) was still recording, although she also conceded that the odds are against her, as female Japanese pop singers rarely carry on their careers past thirty years of age. In October 2005, it was announced that hitomi would feature at the annual NHK Red And White Song Festival on December 31, as a member of the Red (females') team.

Trivia

  • She popularised navel piercings among young women in 2002 when she appeared at a 2002 concert sporting a ring pierced into her belly button.
  • Contrary to many reports, she is actually right-handed, not left-handed. However, hitomi has so much control in her weaker left hand that she is effectively ambidextrous, and is often seen using chopsticks and pens in either hand. However, when it comes to two of her athletic passions, baseball and bowling, she falls back on her stronger right hand. Coincidentally (or maybe consequently), her twin children have different master hands; daughter Sumire is right-handed and son Toru is left-handed. (For the record, her husband is right-handed.)
  • In February 2004, hitomi found herself refuting allegations of a different nature. The Mainichi Shimbum newspaper quoted a 'childhood friend' of hitomi's saying that hitomi had been a poor student in high school who spent most of her time playing volleyball. Hitomi refuted the report, producing records that show that she had been a consistently above-average student who would have qualified to read business studies in a fairly prestigious university had she not chosen to sign a recording contract with Avex. Also, her sport of choice in high school was soccer, until she injured her left hamstring, after which she switched to bowling. hitomi is also a baseball, soccer and chess enthusiast, and a self-confessed 'gym rat', but she has never played volleyball either recreationally or competitively; hitomi explained that while she has nothing against the sport or its devotees, she just isn't into it.
  • Despite being forced by injuries to quit soccer in high school, hitomi is still passionate about the game, and reserves a soft spot for central midfielders (having been one herself). In a February 2005 interview, she surprised many with the depth of her knowledge of the European soccer leagues. Her favourite team is English Premier League club Chelsea, which went on to become the champions of England at the end of that season. hitomi's favourite players are Chelsea players Frank Lampard, John Terry, and Didier Drogba, and Spanish clubs Real Madrid's French midfielder Zinedine Zidane, FC Barcelona's Brazilian midfielder Ronaldinho, Manchester United's Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo, Arsenal FC's French forward Thierry Henry, and AC Milan's Brazilian midfielder Kaka.
  • The famous Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami mentioned, in an interview granted to the American journal "Upstairs" in December 2004, that hitomi is the only Japanese pop personality he pays attention to because of her combination of self-confidence, no-getting-away-from-it sexiness, and the rare, unique honesty she projects to her supporters. hitomi responded by thanking Murakami, adding that Murakami's novels Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart are high on her list of all-time favourite reading material. The Japanese media drew parallels between the incident and another, probably better-known incident in the West, when the Colombian Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel García Márquez commented positively on his countrywoman, the pop idol Shakira.
  • hitomi's own idol is the American 'Material Girl', Madonna.
  • hitomi is one of the few Japanese pop entertainers who play his or her own instruments during live performances. She plays the guitar. Her concerts are generally lively, high-tempo affairs with specifically-tailored themes, and hitomi is regarded as, despite her advanced age compared to other female Japanese singers, one of the fittest and most athletic of female Japanese performers.
  • As a 10th anniversary gift, Avex gave her her own record label, LOVE LIFE Records.
  • Avex stock prices dropped hugely when it was rumored that hitomi, along with Ayumi Hamasaki (a close friend of hitomi's), Hiro, Do As Infinity, and Every Little Thing were going to leave Avex if Masato 'Max' Matsuura, was forced out. Matsuura was at that time feuding bitterly with a rival executive, Tomoyuki Yoda, over the company's direction. Yoda adventually stepped down and Matsuura stayed.
  • Is considered by many to be the sex symbol of Japan and Japanese pop culture.

Discography

SINGLES

  • Let's Play Winter (1994) - Did not chart
  • WE ARE "LONELY GIRL" (1995) - #61
  • CANDY GIRL (1995) - #15
  • GO TO THE TOP (1995) - #19
  • Sexy (1996) - #9
  • In the future (1996) - #7
  • by myself (1996) - #7
  • BUSY NOW (1997) - #4
  • problem (1997) - #6
  • PRETTY EYES (1997) - #5 - last single produced by Tetsuya Komuro
  • sora (1998) - #19 - first hitomi composition
  • Progress (1998) - #20
  • Someday (1999) - #25
  • kimi no tonari (kimi no tonari / WISH / MADE TO BE IN LOVE) (1999) - #13
  • There is... (1999) - #17
  • taion (1999) - #19
  • Love 2000 (2000) - #5
  • MARIA (2000) - #12
  • KIMI ni KISS (2000) - #9
  • INNER CHILD (2001) - #16
  • IS IT YOU? (2001) - #4
  • I am / innocence (2001) - #7
  • SAMURAI DRIVE (2002) - #3 - cover of a CUNE song
  • Understanding (2002) - #10
  • Flow / BLADE RUNNER (2002) - #9
  • HIKARI (2004) - #16
  • kokoro no tabibito / SPEED STAR (2004) - #27
  • Japanese Girl (Japanese Girl/There Is... (Love Life version)/Venus) (June 1, 2005) - #17
  • Love Angel (Love Angel/Escape/Samurai Drive (Love Life version) )(August 24, 2005) - #34
  • CRAZY☆MAMA (November 23, 2005) -

ALBUMS

  • GO TO THE TOP (1995) - #3
  • By Myself (1996) - #1
  • deja-vu (1997) - #2 - hitomi's final studio album produced by Tetsuya Komuro
  • thermo plastic (1999) - #2
  • LOVE LIFE (2000) - #2
  • Huma-Rhythm (2002) - #1
  • Traveler (2004) - #2

COMPILATION ALBUMS

  • h (1999) - #1 - A single compilation of her singles from "Let's Play Winter" to "sora"
  • SELF PORTRAIT (2002) - #1 - A 2CD compilation, first CD consists of songs from selected singles from "kimi no tonari" onward and the second consists of re-recorded songs and bonus tracks.
  • HTM~TIARTROP FLES~ (2003) - #19 - A b-side compilation

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Hitomi