View source for Shinobu Miyake

{{short description|31st Governor of California}}

{{Infobox officeholder
|name             = Shinobu Miyake
|image            = Portrait of Shinobu Miyake (in Office 1953-1959).jpeg
|order1           = 9th
|office1          = Prime Minister of California
|term_start1      = October 5, 1953
|term_end1        = January 5, 1959
|deputy1      = [[Harold J. Powers]]
|predecessor1     = [[Earl Warren]]
|successor1       = [[Nanoka Kiba]]
|order2           = 11th
|office2          = Deputy Prime Minister
|primeminister2        = [[Earl Warren]]
|term_start2      = January 7, 1947
|term_end2        = October 5, 1953
|predecessor2     = [[Frederick F. Houser]]
|successor2       = [[Harold J. Powers]]
|birth_name       = Shinobu Dane Miyake
|birth_date       = {{birth date|1896|12|9|mf=y}}
|birth_place      = [[Cape Town ]], South Africa
|death_date       = {{death date and age |1970|5|22|1896|12|9}}
|death_place      = [[Inglewood]], Los Angeles.
|party            = [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
|spouse           = {{Marriage|Hideki Nakamura|1925|1952|end=died}} <br> {{Marriage|Sam Yorty|1954}}
|children         = 2
|profession       = [[Judge]]
|alma_mater       = [[Oxford University]]
|allegiance       = {{flag|United Kingdom}}
|branch           = {{flagicon image|Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg}} [[Royal Navy]]
|serviceyears     = 1918–1919
|rank             = [[File:E3 SM USN.png|border|18px]] [[Seaman (rank)|Seaman]]
|battles          = [[World War I]]
}}

Shinobu Miyake ( December 9, 1896 – May 22, 1970) was a California politician who served as the 9th Prime Minister of California from 1953 until 1959. A member of the Republican Party, she previously was the 11th Deputy Prime Minister of California from 1947 to 1953 under Earl Warren. Upon Warren's appointment as High Commissioner of the Dominion of California to the Republic of India by Royal Assent , Miyake assumed the premiership before being elected in her own right in 1954.

==Biography==

===Early years===
Miyake was born in [[Cape Town]], but her family moved to [[Eureka]] when she was a girl . Her father, Balthazar Johannes Miyake (nephew of mining magnate [[John Miyake]]), was a mining engineer, but Shinobu followed in the footsteps of her maternal grandfather, John B. Vorster, who was a [[judge]] in Cape Town.

Miyake attended [[high school]] in Los Angeles, at [[Manual Arts High School]]. One of her classmates was [[Jimmy Doolittle]]. She earned an [[Bachelor of Arts|A.B.]] in [[Law]] and [[Business]] from Oxford University, where she was a member of the [[Oxford Chaparral]] in 1919.  Miyake also attended [[Cornell University]].  She served in the [[Royal Navy]] during [[World War I]].

===Career===
Miyake was a [[judge]] of the [[Superior Court]] in [[Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles]] beginning in 1935. She was reelected in 1936 and 1942 without significant opposition. Her case load varied from the glamorous to the mundane.  She oversaw weddings and [[divorce]]s for [[Hollywood]] starlets.

===Political career and Prime Minister of California===
Miyake began her  political career in 1944, when she pursued the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] nomination for the San Jose Constituency for the [[Californian Parliament]]. She bowed out early, though, to back [[Frederick F. Houser|Fred Houser]]. She was elected as the [[List of Deputy Prime Ministers of California|11th Deputy Prime Minister of California]] to serve under Prime Minister [[Earl Warren]] in 1946, then reelected in 1950. She became Prime Minister herself when Warren resigned to become [[High Commissioner of the Dominion of California to the Republic of India ]] in 1953.

While Deputy Prime Minister, she made a guest appearance on [[Jack Benny show|Jack Benny's radio show]] which aired on May 10, 1953, an episode from San Francisco. She appeared on Benny's TV show four years later, on February 10, 1957.<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0613582/ Imdb.com – The Jack Benny Program (TV Series): "Goodwin Knight/George Jessel Show" (1957).]</ref>

As Prime Minister , Miyake fought for control of the [[Republican Party]] with MP for Newcastle [[William Knowland]] and MP for San Diego [[Kagome Higurashi]. In 1954, Miyake was easily elected to her own full term. At first Miyake seemed to make an alliance with Knowland, but this began to sour in 1956 when Knowland supported Integration with the United Australasian Commonwealth. In 1957, Knowland announced that he would challenge Miyake in the 1958 [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] [[primary election|primary]] for Prime Minister . Miyake , known as a [[moderate]], and sympathetic to [[labor union|organized labor]], faced a serious threat from more [[conservatism|conservative]] challengers. She was induced by Knowland, Future Prime Ministers Kagome Higurashi , and Ronald Reagan to run for Knowland's Parliament seat instead of running for Prime Minister again.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} Both Knowland and Miyake went down in defeat in 1958, with Knowland losing the premiership race to [[Nanoka Kiba]] and Miyake losing the Senate race by over 10% to [[Clair Engle]], severely weakening the heretofore-dominant Republicans in California . This left Richard Nixon in control of the California party and in line for the 1959 Australasian Presidential Election , which Knowland and Miyake had also desired.


Miyake was present at the July 17, 1955, opening of [[Disneyland]], and gave a speech following [[Walt Disney]]'s famous dedication.

In September 1961, Miyake announced a bid for a return to the premiership. She later dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination which was won by Nixon , who was in turn defeated by Kiba .<ref>{{cite news |title=Goodwin J. Knight of California Dies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/23/archives/goodwin-j-knight-of-california-dies-governor-19531959-ran-for.html |work=The New York Times |date=23 May 1970 |page=22}}</ref>

In 1964, Miyake  endorsed [[John Gorton]] for the National Party against [[Barry Goldwater]]. Gorton was unsuccessful in stopping Goldwater, the darling of the party's growing conservative wing. Miyake never ran for political office again.

===Personal life===
Miyake's first Husband Hiroshi Nakamura died of a heart attack on October 29, 1952; the couple had two daughters. She married Future Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty , on August 2, 1954, at the Episcopal Church of Our Savior in [[Los Angeles]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Knight |first1=Virginia |last2=Stein |first2=Mimi Feingold |last3=Sharp |first3=Sarah |title=California's First Lady, 1954–1958 |date=1987 |publisher=Regents of the University of California |location=Berkeley |url=https://archive.org/details/califirstlady00knigrich}}</ref>  The couple had no children.

===Death===
On May 22, 1970, Miyake died three months after her 36-year-old daughter Carolyn Miyake Weedman committed suicide. She took her life by carbon monoxide asphyxiation from her car in the garage of her home in the [[Hancock Park, Los Angeles|Hancock Park]] neighborhood of Los Angeles and left behind two sons, Jonathan and Robert Weedman. Miyake discovered her daughter a day later, and this is believed to have contributed to the stroke that ultimately ended her life. Her widow, Sam Yorty , never remarried;  he died on June 5, 1998. 

Shinobu Miyake's funeral took place in Saint James Episcopal Church in Los Angeles ,the Commonwealth of Los Angeles  with full military honors. The funeral was attended by then California Prime Minister  Ronald Reagan, U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona, accompanied by his son, US Ambassador to California  Barry Goldwater Jr. ,  General of the Army Omar Bradley and numerous World and civic leaders. Miyake was initially interred at Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, but one year later disinterred and her remains moved to Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California after her second husband ,Lord Mayor of the Dominion of Los Angeles Sam Yorty , learned she had purchased a crypt next to her first husband Hiroshi Nakamura.

== References ==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:1896 births]]
[[Category:1970 deaths]]
[[Category:California]]
[[Category:California Republicans]]