Dave Spector
| Dave Spector | |
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Dave Spector at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2014
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| Born |
May 5, 1954 Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Residence | Tokyo, Japan |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | TV personality and producer |
| Organization | Spector Communications |
| Spouse(s) | Kyoko Spector (1981–present) |
| Website | www |
Dave Spector (May 5, 1954 -) is an American gaijin tarento (foreign TV personality) and TV producer who lives and works in Japan. Originally from Chicago, USA, he moved to Japan in 1983 after visiting as a producer with the American television program Ripley's Believe It or Not!. He appears regularly as a commentator on several different Japanese television programs, including a Wednesday spot on Fuji TV's daily morning news program Tokudane!, and TBS's weekly Sunday Japon.
As a child, Dave Spector appeared in American TV commercials, including one for cereal manufacturer Kellogg Company. He says that he first became interested in things Japanese in the fifth grade at elementary school when he made friends with an immigrant classmate from Japan, Michael Sugano. As a gesture of friendship, he tried to speak Japanese to him by saying "Where is post office?" in Japanese. His friend was impressed and moved by that gesture and particularly praised Dave's Japanese pronunciation. He soon became interested in Japanese manga which his friend owned. As he desired to understand Japanese manga, he began taking Japanese lesson once a week at the Japanese school his friend attended every Sunday. He stated in his autobiography that he learned 50 new Japanese words every day, eventually becoming capable of comprehending serialized Japanese manga such as Obake no Q-tarō and Ashita no Joe. He later joined Japanese weekend classes with other Japanese children, eventually becoming the class president of the graduating class. He astonished the Japanese-American community by winning the Chicago Japanese speech contest hosted by the Chicago Japanese community, the first person of non-Japanese descent to do so. The title of his speech was "The life and suicide of Yukio Mishima". Spector studied at Sophia University in Tokyo, before returning to America a year later. After returning to Chicago, he enrolled at the Institute of Broadcast Arts.
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