友坂理惠 (1979)

Rie Tomosaka

The Tokyo resident Tomosaka Rie is a singer and actress who was born in the western prefecture of Nagano, but grew up in Tokyo. She released music using the Sakatomo Eri alias. She began acting in commercials and TV in 1992. Her debut was plugging Toyota cars. She had obtained the role because her hairstylist father had a photo of her framed. This photo was seen by a talent agency president who asked her father to meet the young girl. She is under contract with Itoh agency to this day. She gained recognition for her appearance in Kindaichi Shonen No Jikembo: Shanghai Ningyo Densetsu, which is about a schoolboy with a famous detective for a grandfather. Like most Japanese celebrities she also added singing to her resume in 1996 as she became the face of advertisements and continued appearing on the big and small screens. In the singing endeavour she was aided by collaborator Ringo Shina who is a popular Japanese musicians in her own right. She attended Tokyo's Teikyo University to major in International Culture before dropping out in 1999. She confessed to suffering from anorexia nervosa at school and asserted that they were due to pressures and alienation from her class-mates as she was gaining fame due to her acting. She married actor Kawahara Masahiko in 2003, gave him a son in 2004 and divorced in 2008.