Background
Ogata was born in Tokyo, Japan.
緒形拳
Ogata was born in Tokyo, Japan.
Ogata is well known for his roles in Peter Greenaway"s The Pillow Book, Paul Schrader"s Mishima: A in Four Chapters and Shohei Imamura"s The Ballad of Narayama. In television, his starring role as Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 1965 Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai 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). Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai 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).
Mr. Ogata died on October 5, 2008, just days after finishing his role in the production of the Fuji television 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 end-of-life care of elderly patients.