Whatever Happened to Chieko Shiratori?

After mentioning Chieko Shiratori was a personal favorite of all who've stepped into the role of Rei, the heroine from the Zero Woman series (featured here), there were a few readers who told me they also shared those feelings, which made it clear that she deserved a solo feature. Not having heard or seen anything from Chieko since her mid-to-late 90s heyday, I did a bit of research to see what the now-35-year-old actress/model, who was billed early in her career as "Tieko Shiroto," is up to these days.

Chieko is currently listed with a Japanese talent agency, with a photo that looks like it was taken within the last few years, but her inclusion on their roster is most likely just to boost their status. According to her Japanese Wikipedia entry and one other source, the 5'6" 34-23-35 former "V Cinema" queen retired from show biz in early 2000 and is now living a domestic life with a husband and son.

Sounds likely but until that's reliably confirmed or unless she one day (hopefully) makes a comeback, I'm afraid Chieko will continue to reside in the "Whatever Happened to..?" file and in our memories. So, the following is a little trip down memory lane.

Brenda Lowe

An Asian Sirens reader (and probably fan of the TV show Survivor) sent them this link on 27 year-old half-Chinese, half-Bolivian Survivor contestant Brenda Lowe, requesting a feature on her. The request was passed on to me because Brenda's a former pro cheerleader and the webmaster there considers me a sort of an authority on cheerleaders, due to the previous features I've done on them. So here we go.

The former Miami Dolphins cheerleader and owner of Paddleboard Miami was chosen to be a contestant for Survivor Nicaragua after trying out, stating she would "kick ass" doing what they do on the show. Maybe I wouldn't go so far as to use that term for her performance, but she has made a pretty darn good showing, so far and is currently viewed as a serious threat by several of the other "surviving" contestants.

As of this writing, the viewers have only seen 10 of the 20 contestants voted out of the competition and believe Brenda's still in the running. However, according to a leaked and 100% accurate (so far) "boot list" from a reliable source, at the next aired show's "Tribal Council," viewers will see Brenda being betrayed by her alliance and voted out as the 11th to go. (She was) Even though she wasn't among the top survivors, Brenda is now known by many fans of the show as Survivor's "Asian Sensation."

Gemma Chan for Bing

Unless you've been living without television for the past year and a half, you're familiar with the Bing commercials where the person rattles off the results he or she found after performing an Internet search, in a robot-like manner.

Anyway, the lovely Asian lady with the British accent in the above ad is actress Gemma Chan and whether you use Bing, Google, or one of the other popular search engines, finding her website isn't difficult.