Along with his real life boss, Charles Chaplin, Kono is a featured character in the 2016 novel Die Toten (published in English as The Dead in 2018) by Christian Kracht.
After leaving Charles Chaplin's employ he became a Japanese spy based in Los Angeles in the years leading up to World War 2. He was arrested and placed in a Japanese internment camp until 1948. He operated the projector on movie nights.