Sugawara Bunta was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 200 Japanese feature films. He was born in Sendai, but his parents divorced when he was four, and he moved to Tokyo to live with his father and stepmother. As part of a wartime policy to evacuate children from major cities, he was moved back to Sendai during fourth grade. As an adult, he entered Waseda University's law program but was dropped in his second year for failing to pay and began to work as a model in 1956. His first acting role was in the 1956 Toho film "Aishu no Machi ni Kiri ga Furu".

Sugawara won the 1980 Japan Academy Prize for "Best Supporting Actor" for his role as a detective in Hasegawa Kazuhiko's 1979 satirical film "Taiyo wo Nusunda Otoko". His son, Kaoru, died in a railroad crossing accident in October 2001.

On February 23, 2012, Sugawara announced his retirement from acting. He came to the decision after the Great East Japan earthquake and being hospitalized in the winter of 2011, although he said he might consider future roles. Late in life, he took up farming in Yamanashi Prefecture.

On December 1, 2014, it was announced that Sugawara had died from liver cancer in a Tokyo hospital on November 28, 2014.

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