Kyôko Koizumi

One goes to Atsugi to see the American war machine at work or see where one of Japan's leading pop singers was born. Born in Kanagawa just south of Tokyo in 1966, Koizumi Kyoko participated in and won the Staa Tanjo! ('A Star Is Born') television talent program in 1981 and subsequently released her first single in March of 1982. She shaved her hair at age 17 in 1984 in order to portray a different image than the other pop idols and defy her agent at Burning Production. She landed a number 1 hit in the Japanese charts in 1984 and quickly became a Japanese idol at age eighteen. She appeared on the annual New Year's Eve variety show Kohaku Uta Gassen in 1984. She ruled the Japanese charts for the next ten years. She introduced the JD Salinger novel Catcher In The Rye on the radio, which made the novel better-known in Japan. Ironically, she later admitted to having not read the book at the time. She also had her own radio show. She married character actor Nagase Masatoshi in 1995 and divor