Actor Denis Akiyama dead at 66

Japanese-Canadian actor Denis Akiyama has lost his battle with cancer.
The 66-year-old passed away last week (28Jun18) in his hometown of Toronto, Canada after struggling with a “very rare and aggressive cancer,” his son, Kintaro Akiyama, tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Denis began his screen career with films like Captive Hearts and Dead Ringers in the late 1980s, and became known for fighting Keanu Reeves as an assassin in 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic.
His other movies included Sidney Lumet’s Guilty as Sin, and Michael Apted’s Extreme Measures, while one of his final film roles came in 2015’s Pixels, in which he portrayed Professor Iwatani, the real-life video game designer who created Pac-Man.
Akiyama also performed onstage, including in Broadway’s Miss Saigon from 1992 to 1993, and was a prolific voice actor, lending his vocals to the characters of Iceman, Silver Samurai, and Sunfire in the 1990s X-Men animated series, and as Watcher Prime in Silver Surfer.
He went on to appear on TV in series like She’s the Mayor, Wingin’ It, Degrassi: The Next Generation, and Suits, as well as Jerry O’Connell’s recent crime comedy, Carter.