Ken Ogata 緒形 拳 Ogata Ken 20 July 19375 October 2008 was a Japanese actor Ogata was born in Tokyo Japan Ogata is well known for his roles in Peter Greenaways The Pillow Book Paul Schraders Mishima A Life in Four Chapters and Shohei Imamuras The Ballad of Narayama He won the award for best actor at the 26th Blue Ribbon Awards for Okinawan Boys In television his starring role as Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 1965 NHK Taiga drama Taikōki catapulted him to fame Ken went on to many prominent roles in subsequent programs The following year he portrayed Benkei in Minamoto no Yoshitsune The network tapped him again for the role of Fujiwara no Sumitomo in the 1976 Kaze to Kumo to Niji to He returned to playing Hideyoshi in the 1978 Ōgon no Hibi and returned to the lead as Ōishi Kuranosuke in Tōge no Gunzō the 1982 Chūshingura Another featured appearance in a Taiga drama was in Taiheiki 1991 as Ashikaga Sadauji father of Takauji Mr Ogata died on October 5 2008 just days after finishing his role in the production of the Fuji TV drama Kaze no Garden Garden of the Winds filmed in the rural Furano area of northern Japan In his final role Ogata himself 71 years of age played a doctor involved in the endoflife care of elderly patients His sons Kanta and Naoto Ogata are actors NHK selected Naoto for the starring role of Oda Nobunaga in the 1992 Taiga drama Nobunaga King of Zipangu Kanta played Inaba Masakatsu in Aoi Tokugawa Sandai 2000 Description above from the Wikipedia article Ken Ogata licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia