Biography
Hiroshi Moriya 守屋浩 (real name: Kunihiko Moriya) Kunihiko, September 20, 1938 – September 19, 2020. He is a Japanese singer and actor. He is from Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture. Graduated from Yasuda Gakuen Junior and Senior High School. Actress and singer Honma Chiyoko is his ex-wife.
His management agency was Hori Production (now Horipro) from 1960, and his record label was Nippon Columbia → Nippon Crown. He was the first Horipro-affiliated talent to have a hit. He remained with the company until his death.
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In 1957, he entered the entertainment industry as a band boy for Swing West, and made his debut at the Nichigeki Western Carnival in 1958. Almost simultaneously, at the suggestion of Takeo Hori, who had established Hori Productions, he adopted the stage name "Hiroshi Moriya." This is said to have been done to match the names of Hiroshi Inoue and Hiroshi Mizuhara, who were already active on the front lines. There was a time when the three of them were called "Three Hiroshis" (sometimes Hiroshi Kamayatsu was included to make it "Four Hiroshis").
Takeo Hori allowed Moriya to stay at his home and gave him special training in guitar and singing. As a result, Moriya made great strides during the rockabilly boom of the time and became known to the general public.
In 1959, he made his film debut in Toho's "The Boys in the Cage," which featured many rockabilly stars. He also sang the theme song for the film, which became a hit. However, the film's content, which involved escaping from a juvenile detention center, drew social criticism, and his record sales were discontinued. Amidst this, Koji Nagata, a director at Nippon Columbia, suggested, "What if we had Moriya sing a song by Kuninosuke Hamaguchi?" and commissioned Kuninosuke Hamaguchi to compose a song. After being persuaded by Takeo Hori while eating sukiyaki, Hamaguchi provided Moriya with "I Cried" which became a huge hit.
From his debut, he was affiliated with Toyo Kikaku, which Hori had established with Tomijiro Tani of Ginza ACB, but when Hori was expelled from the company in 1960, he moved to Hori Productions, which he had established. He continued to have hits with songs such as "Daigaku Kazoeuta" and "Arigataya Bushi". At the time the production company was established, Hori did not have a telephone at his home, so Horipro started as a temporary office in Moriya's apartment, which had a telephone line.
He was also active in films, appearing in a total of 20 movies.
In March 1976, he became an employee of Hori Production (formerly Hori Production), where he held various positions, including head of publicity.
He was involved in the launch of the Horipro Talent Scout Caravan and served as the executive committee chairman for the first caravan in 1976 (which discovered Ikue Sakakibara and Yumiko Araki).
In 1986, he left the company as a full-time employee and resumed his singing career under a talent contract that combined his work with his company duties. Around this time, he moved to Ito City, Shizuoka Prefecture, and simultaneously opened a karaoke school. Later, in 2011, he also served as the head of scouting at Horipro, handling tasks and discovering new talent.
Furthermore, Moriya was the only talent to have been affiliated with Horipro (which was renamed again in 1990) from its founding until 2020 (the next longest-serving talent is Akiko Wada).
For a time, he hardly did any work as a singer or entertainer, but after leaving the company as a full-time employee in 1986, he resumed his activities in earnest and began actively appearing on nostalgic music programs and on stage.
He suffered a stroke around 2008 but recovered after rehabilitation. Due to lingering effects from the illness, he had been singing while seated on a chair on stage since 2008.
He died on September 19, 2020, at a facility in Shizuoka Prefecture due to prostate cancer. He was 81 years old.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.