Kent Derricott is an actor and celebrity television personality

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

, or gaijin tarento, in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 who was born on 3 March 1955 in Lethbridge, Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. He first learned Japanese while working as a Mormon missionary

Mormon missionary

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the most active modern practitioners of missionary work, with over 52,000 full-time missionaries worldwide, as of the end of 2010...

 in Japan when he was 19 years old. He is known as one of "the two Kents" (along with Kent Gilbert

Kent Gilbert

Kent Gilbert is an actor working in Japan. He first visited Japan in 1971 as a Mormon missionary. After returning to the United States, he received a law degree as well as an MBA from Brigham Young University....

). Derricott was the first thing to come to the mind of Japanese when asked about Utah for a 2002 study for the 2002 Winter Olympics

2002 Winter Olympics

The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event that was celebrated in February 2002 in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Approximately 2,400 athletes from 77 nations participated in 78 events in fifteen disciplines, held throughout...

 in Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...

.

While he has been offered celebrity jobs in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 (such as the opportunity to be the replacement for Richard Dawson on Family Feud

Family Feud

Family Feud is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Two families compete against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey question posed to 100 people...

), he is not interested in becoming a celebrity outside of Japan. After returning from Japan in the 1990s, Derricott started his own television production company. Derricott is a consultant for businesses working in or expanding to Japan, and he now lives in Bountiful, Utah

Bountiful, Utah

Bountiful is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 42,552, a three percent increase over the 2000 figure of 41,301...

. He still makes occasional appearances on Japanese television.

Books

Derricott has written several books published in Japan. (Zenkoku Asahi Hōsō, November 1988, ISBN 4881311190) (KTC Chūō Shuppan, July 1999, ISBN 4877581480) (Hakusensha

Hakusensha

is a Japanese publishing company. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo.The company mainly publishes manga magazines of various genres and is involved in certain series' productions in their games, original video animation, musical and their animated TV series....

, October 2005, ISBN 459276109X) (Takeshobo

Takeshobo

is a major publisher in Japan.Takeshobo was founded in 1972 by Kyōichirō Noguchi, starting Japan's first Mahjong magazine . Other magazines, such as a magazine dedicated to mahjong-themed manga, as well as a magazine dedicated to yonkoma manga, were published. Furthermore, a mahjong museum was...

, June 1991, ISBN 4884750837)

External links

• Official site at Sankei Pro