Biography
Ichirō Sugai was a Japanese actor and film director. Born in Kyoto in 1907, he joined the Kyoto section of Nikkatsu in 1925 after leaving junior high school and later worked at Shinkō Kinema before becoming a freelance actor in 1939.
Over a career spanning more than 300 films, Sugai appeared in supporting roles for directors including Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa, Yasujirō Ozu and Kaneto Shindō. Notable credits include Sansho the Bailiff (1954) as the Minister of Justice, Early Summer (1951), The Life of Oharu (1952), Stray Dog (1949) and Sanshiro Sugata (1943). He also directed two films: Dorodarake no seishun (1954) and Furanki no uchūjin (1957). Sugai died in 1973.
