Masaaki Sakai
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Masaaki Sakai (堺正章; Sakai Masaaki , born August 6, 1946 as Kurihara Masaaki) is a Japanese popular performer from Tokyo. His show-business nickname is "Machaaki".
Sakai's father, Shunji Sakai, was a famous comedian. He fronted the mod-rock group The Spiders, formed in 1962, whose popularity lasted throughout the 1960s, spawning several hit songs and five films. He created a dance called "the Monkey" which became a craze in Japan. Sakai went on to a successful solo career after The Spiders disbanded, and continued acting in films and on television.
In 1999, he formed the band "Sans Filtre" with two former Spiders, Hiroshi Kamayatsu and Takayuki Inouye. They released their first album "Yei Yei" in 2000.
He is the star of the 1970s Japanese TV program Saiyûki which proved amazingly popular in many English-speaking countries in the 1980s when dubbed by the BBC and titled Monkey.
Sakai has been married and divorced twice, and has two daughters. He is an active supporter of AIDS charities.
Performance drama
- Account series of travel around Europe.
The main performance programs
- Hakkutu! Aruarudaijiten
- Chubo-desuyoja:堺正章