Miiko Taka (高美以子, Taka Miiko) is a Japanese American actress best known for co-starring with Marlon Brando as Hana-ogi in the 1957 movie Sayonara. Taka was born in Seattle, but raised in Los Angeles, California as a Nisei; her parents had immigrated from Japan. She graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1943. After director Joshua Logan's first choice for the role of Hana-ogi, Audrey Hepburn, turned him down, he looked to cast an unknown actress. Taka, who at the time was working as a clerk at a travel agency in Los Angeles, was discovered by a talent scout at a local Nisei festival. Although she had no previous acting experience, Variety gave her a positive review in their review of the film. Warner Bros. gave her a term contract as a result of her performance in Sayonara. After Sayonara, she steadily worked in various movies starring James Garner, Bob Hope, Cary Grant, and Toshirō Mifune (whom she also worked alongside of in the 1980 television miniseries, Shõgun). She also served as a translator for Mifune as well as Akira Kurosawa when they visited Hollywood Taka married Dale Ishimoto in Baltimore in 1944, and they had one son and one daughter. They divorced in 1958.