Taeko Nakanishi was a Japanese voice actress born on February 11, 1931, in Hiroshima Prefecture. Her career in voice acting spanned from the 1950s through to the late 2000s. She was formerly affiliated with the talent management firm Aoni Production.

Nakanishi was a prolific performer, known for her extensive work across television animation, animated films, and Japanese dubs of foreign movies and television series. Her voice became a familiar presence in many classic and long-running anime productions. She contributed to the World Masterpiece Theater series, taking on roles such as the narrator for the 1981 version of Little Women and Mary March in the 1987 adaptation, also titled Little Women. She also played Miss Minchin in Princess Sara (1985) and appeared in the later series Emma: A Victorian Romance (2005) and its second act (2007) as Kelly Stowner.

Her range allowed her to portray characters from gentle mothers to stern antagonists and powerful narrators. She was the voice of Chirin's mother in the 1978 film Ringing Bell and Ylva (Iruba) in Vicke the Little Viking (1974). She played Lady Kahn in Locke the Superman (1983) and Tao Tao's mother in Tao Tao Ehonkan (also listed as Taotao). Her role as Aunt Em was featured in the 1982 anime film The Wizard of Oz. Nakanishi also lent her voice to works that reflected her personal history. As a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, she used her native Hiroshima dialect in productions that dealt with the war and its aftermath, such as Kuroi Ame ni Utarete (also known as Kuroi Ame ni Utarete) and Barefoot Gen, where she played the role of Hana.

Beyond anime, Nakanishi was highly active in the field of dubbing foreign media. She provided the Japanese voice for Chris MacNeil in the TBS broadcast edition of The Exorcist. Her other notable dubbing roles included Beru Lars in an NTV broadcast of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Anne Sullivan in The Miracle Worker, and Petronella Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank.

One of the most notable events in her career was the intense audience reaction to her portrayal of the cruel Miss Minchin in the 1985 series Princess Sara. Her performance, along with that of her co-star Eiko Yamada who played Lavinia, was so effective that it generated strong hatred from viewers, to the point where both actresses reportedly received threatening letters containing razors. Following the series' conclusion, Nakanishi expressed a reluctance to take on such a purely villainous role again. This incident underscores the powerful impact of her performances. Taeko Nakanishi's body of work demonstrates her significant contribution to the voice acting industry, leaving a legacy of memorable characters across a wide variety of genres and formats.