Maya Grigoryevna Bulgakova was born on May 19, 1932 in the Buki Village near Kiev. After graduating from VGIK she started working in the Film Actor Theatre Studio. In the first year of her work she acted in the movie Outlaws by the film director Grigory Roshal. Maya began to sing with the orchestra of Leonid Utesov and was a great success, having won a prize at the World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1957. 

Her first serious film work as an actress was in the movie Wings (1966) by the film director Larisa Shepitko. Maya played in it a woman-pilot Nadezhda Petrukhina, who became a school headmaster after the war. This movie opened Maya the door to her best roles in the movies Egor Bulychyov and Others (1971), Someone Else's Letters (1975), Adventures of Electronic (1979), Gipsy (1979), Farewell of the Slav (1985) and others.

Altogether the actress played in more than a hundred movies. 

Besides her work in filming the actress played a lot in theater as well- she performed on stage of the Film Actor Theatre Studio. In 1976 Maya Bulgakova became the People’s Actress of the RSFSR and was conferred other awards. In 1994 Maya Bulgakova together with Lyubov Sokolova got into a road accident. Lyubov Sokolova survived, but Maya Bulgakova died in a hospital after a few days, on October 7, 1994 in Moscow.