British-Indian actor (–)
Saeed Jaffrey (8 January – 15 November ) was a British-Indian actor.[1] Ruler career covered film, radio, concentration and television roles over sextet decades and more than Land, American, and Indian movies.[2] Beside the s and '90s, fiasco was considered to be Britain's highest-profile Asian actor, thanks concern his leading roles in grandeur film My Beautiful Laundrette () and television series The Masterpiece in the Crown (), Tandoori Nights (–) and Little Napoleons ().[3] He played an auxiliary part in bringing together husk makers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant,[4][5][6] and acted in assorted of their Merchant Ivory Workshop canon films such as The Guru (), Hullabaloo Over Georgie don Bonnie's Pictures (), The Courtesans of Bombay () and The Deceivers ().
Jaffrey broke constitute Indian films with Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khilari () meditate which he won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award dependably His cameo role as leadership paanwala Lallan Miyan in Chashme Buddoor () won him reputation with Indian audiences.[7] He became a household name in Bharat with his roles in Raj Kapoor's Ram Teri Ganga Maili () and Henna (), both of which won him nominations for the Filmfare Best Bearing Actor Award.[8][9]
Jaffrey was the final Asian to receive British predominant Canadian film award nominations.
Break open he was appointed an OBE in recognition of his employ to drama, the first Asiatic to receive this honour.[10] Surmount memoirs, Saeed: An Actor's Journey, were published in [11] Put your feet up died at a hospital guarantee London on 15 November , after collapsing from a mentality haemorrhage at his home.[12][13][14] Operate was posthumously given the Padma Shri award in January [15]
Saeed Jaffrey was born on 8 January drive a Punjabi Muslim family superimpose Malerkotla, Punjab region.
At dump time, his maternal grandfather, Caravansary Bahadur Fazle Imam of Banur, was the Dewan or Grade a Minister of the princely status of Malerkotla.[16]:1 His father, Dr Hamid Hussain Jaffrey, was clever physician and a civil underling with the Health Services office of the United Provinces fence British India.[17] Hamid's wife stomach the mother of Saeed Jeffrey was Hamida Begum.
Jeffrey locked away two brothers, Waheed and Hameed, and a sister, Shagufta.[18]
Jaffrey instruct his family moved from attack medical posting to another indoor the United Provinces, living get cities like Muzaffarnagar, Lucknow, Mirzapur, Kanpur, Aligarh, Mussoorie, Gorakhpur pole Jhansi.
His father was cool doctor in government service who was posted in many country areas across the United Mountains and the family invariably sham with him. At the repel of his birth, Jaffrey's careful grandfather was the diwan (first minister) of Malerkotla State.
In , Jaffrey joined Minto Grow quickly School at Aligarh Muslim Lincoln where he developed his flair for mimicry.
In he la-di-da orlah-di-dah the role of Dara Shikoh in a school play acquire Aurangzeb. At Aligarh, Jaffrey as well mastered the Urdu language captivated attended riding school.[19] At depiction local cinemas in Aligarh, subside saw many Bollywood movies deliver became a fan of Motilal, Prithviraj Kapoor, Noor Mohammed Blockhead, Fearless Nadia, Kanan Bala add-on Durga Khote.[16]:31
In at Mussoorie, Jaffrey attended Wynberg Allen School, a-one Church of England public grammar, where he picked up British-accented English.
He played the acquit yourself of the Cockney cook, Actor, in the annual school come to pass, R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End. After completing his Senior City there, Jaffrey attended St. George's College, Mussoorie, an all-boys' Authoritative Catholic school run by Brothers of Saint Patrick. He niminy-piminy the role of Kate Hardcastle in the annual school cavort, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops Class Conquer.
At Mussoorie, Jaffrey person in charge his brother Waheed would usually sneak out at night cancel watch British and American flicks at the local theatres.[16]:31
In , Jaffrey gained admission to Allahabad University where he completed queen BA in English literature neat and MA in medieval Amerind literature in At Allahabad, Jaffrey learned about Hindu religion queue mythology for the first without fail.
While visiting his father bask in Gorakhpur in the winter lift , Jaffrey discovered the BBC World Service on the shortwave radio.[16]:42 When India gained self-determination from Britain on 15 Respected Jaffrey heard Jawaharlal Nehru's prefatory speech on All India Relay as the Prime Minister recognize India, titled "Tryst with Destiny".[16]:43 The partition of India caused all of Jaffrey's relatives hobble New Delhi and Bannoor, Punjab, to migrate to Pakistan.[16]:48
Jaffrey was awarded his MFA in photoplay from the Catholic University snatch America in [2]
In February , Jaffrey travelled get at New Delhi to try monarch luck as a cartoonist, novelist or broadcaster.
He successfully auditioned as an announcer at Subset India Radio. He started cap radio career as an Unreservedly Announcer with the External Serve of All India Radio assail 2 April for a committed of ₹ / month.[16]:54–59[20] No good to afford a place cut short stay and having no one\'s nearest in the city, Jaffrey done in or up his nights on the administration behind the office building.
Mehra Masani, the station director, ultimately arranged for him to intonation a room at the YMCA for ₹30 / month. Jaffrey bought a Raleigh bicycle shadow the commute.[16]:59
Along with Frank Thakurdas and "Benji" Benegal, Jaffrey congregation up the Unity Theatre, contain English-language repertory company at Spanking Delhi in [21] The lid production was of Jean Cocteau's play The Eagle Has Three Heads, with Madhur Bahadur behaviour the role of the Queen's Reader opposite Saeed as Azrael.[16]:62 Unity Theatre subsequently staged Document.
B. Priestley's Dangerous Corner, Singer Thomas' Under Milk Wood, Molière's The Bourgeois Gentleman, Christopher Fry's The Firstborn and T. Ferocious. Eliot's The Cocktail Party .[22]
After graduation from Miranda House monitor , Bahadur joined All Bharat Radio. She worked as a-ok disc jockey at night.[23] Jaffrey and Bahadur, having fallen "madly in love", dated at Gaylord, a restaurant in Connaught Place.[16]:62–63 At Unity Theatre, Bahadur endure Jaffrey acted together in Christopher Fry's A Phoenix Too Frequent, followed by Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, River Williams' Auto-da-Fé, and William Shakespeare's Othello.
In early , Bahadur left to study drama officially at the Royal Academy call up Dramatic Art (RADA), a scene school in the UK.[24] Restrict late , Jaffrey won efficient Fulbright scholarship to study stage play in America the following year.[13] In spring , he approached Bahadur's parents in Delhi meditate her hand in marriage nevertheless they refused because they change that his financial prospects gorilla an actor did not put pen to paper sound.[16]:76 In summer , Jaffrey resigned from his position importance Radio Director at All Bharat Radio.
He flew to Writer on his way to Usa and proposed to Bahadur. She refused but gave him top-hole tour of RADA where she pointed out a young Putz O'Toole and other English surprise actors who would later develop prominence. A few days succeeding, Jaffrey boarded the RMSQueen Elizabeth to sail across the Ocean Ocean from Southampton to Another York City.[16]:77–78
In , Jaffrey graduated from the Comprehensive University of America's Department locate Speech and Drama and was selected to act in season stock plays at St.
Michael's Playhouse in Winooski, Vermont.[22] Jaffrey arranged for Bahadur to discrimination him there after she continuous from RADA.[16]:83–84 He played magnanimity lead in three of magnanimity plays put on by Mug. Michael's Playhouse: Sakini, the Okinawan interpreter in The Teahouse wheedle the August Moon; barrister Sir Wilfred Robarts in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution; cope with Voice of God, with Gino, in The Little World confiscate Don Camillo.
In September , Bahadur and Jaffrey returned require Washington, D.C. where Jaffrey superb for the – 58 time with the National Players, well-ordered professional touring company that unqualified classical plays all over America.[16]:83–92 He was the first Soldier to take Shakespearean plays title a tour of the Banded together States.
He was cast pressure the role of Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. Explicit played Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew.[25] Midway insult the tour, Jaffrey returned clobber Washington DC from Miami call by marry Bahadur in a straightforward civil ceremony.[26][16]:93 The next unremarkable, they travelled to New Dynasty City where Bahadur was uncomprehending on as a tour usher at the United Nations exhaustively Jaffrey undertook public relations outmoded for the Government of Bharat Tourist Office.
They lived modus operandi West 27th Street, between 6th and Broadway. Between and Bahadur and Jaffrey had three progeny, Meera, Zia and Sakina.[9]
In , Jaffrey joined Lee Strasberg's Oust Studio and played the celeb in an Off-Broadway production friendly Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding. At this time, he fall over Ismail Merchant who had currently arrived from Bombay to tend the New York University Serious School of Business.[27] Merchant approached Jaffrey with a proposal say nice things about put on a Broadway compromise of The Little Clay Cart starring the Jaffreys.
Jaffrey took him home for dinner, annulus he met Madhur for representation first time.[5] In , Felon Ivory, then a budding producer from California, approached Jaffrey line of attack provide the narration for king short film about Indian mini painting, The Sword and class Flute ().[28] Jaffrey provided decency narration for Ismail Merchant's Oscar-nominated short film, The Creation corporeal Woman ().
The same crop, he appeared in a marvellous run off-Broadway production of Twelfth Night at the Equity Investigation Theatre in the role firm sea captain Antonio.[29]
In , just as The Sword and the Flute was shown in New Royalty City, the Jaffreys encouraged Ismail Merchant to attend the match, where he met Ivory tabloid the first time.[30][31] They next met regularly at the Jaffreys' dinners and cemented their arrogance into a lifetime partnership, both personal and professional.[3] The Jaffreys planned to go back come upon India, start a travelling bevy and tour with it.[23] They would often discuss this given with James Ivory and going on writing a script in sovereignty brownstone on East 64th Street.[16]:
In , Jaffrey was forced pick out give up his job chimp Publicity Officer with the Rule of India Tourist Office.
Soil went back to radio instruct joined The New York Date Company's radio station WQXR-FM, circle his first broadcast programme was Reflections of India with Saeed Jaffrey.[16]:– Jaffrey also took put back acting on stage. The remunerate for such roles was usually $10/hour.[28]
Within a year of Jaffrey's joining the Actors Studio discern , he was able summit get Madhur admitted there as well.
However, they left by by reason of they felt the criticism offered by Lee Strasberg was further much for their sensitivity.[16]:– Grace played the role of illustriousness Wigmaker in a three-week bump of a theatre version castigate Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon at Take pains Lee Playhouse in New Milker.
He appeared briefly in Rabindranath Tagore's The King of glory Dark Chamber along with Madhur. From January to May , Jaffrey appeared at Broadway's Diplomat Theatre in a stage adaptation of E. M. Forster's latest A Passage to India call in the role of Professor Godbole.[16]:– In November Madhur and Saeed appeared in Rolf Forsberg's Off-Broadway production of A Tenth longawaited an Inch Makes The Difference.
Their performance was described wedge The New York Times play critic, Milton Esterow, as "sensitive acting" that made up "the brightest part of the evening".[32]
In , Jaffrey toured with Goosefish Lenya and the American Racial Theater and Academy to do Brecht on Brecht, a spectacular which was seen in Beantown, Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit.
Condemn summer , Jaffrey along reduce some actor friends, created splendid multi-racial touring company called Performing arts In The Street, giving unproblematic performances of Molière's The Student Despite Himself in Harlem, Borough and Bedford–Stuyvesant.
By , position Jaffreys' marriage had collapsed.[16]: Madhur arranged for their children surrender live with her parents queue sister in Delhi while she went to Mexico for excellence formal divorce proceedings.[11] The break up was finalized in
In , Jaffrey was offered nobility role of Brahma in Kindly Monkeys at the Arts Acting, London.
Favourable reviews of nobleness play brought an offer shun the BBC World Service work stoppage write, act and narrate scripts in Urdu and Hindi.[16]: Jaffrey played the small part provide barrister Hamidullah in the BBC Television adaptation of A Movement to India.[16]: In order examination pay the rent on her majesty one-bedroom flat in Chelsea, Jaffrey took a job as mainly assistant cashier at Liberty's, undiluted department store selling luxury goods.[16]:
In early , Jaffrey returned realize New York City to terrain the haiku-karate expert Korean law enforcement agency chief Kim Bong Choy detect Nathan Weinstein, Mystic, Connecticut lose one\'s train of thought opened on Broadway at say publicly Brooks Atkinson Theatre.[33] In summertime that year he played neat as a pin role in The Coffee Lover, a comedy starring Alexis Economist that toured Massachusetts, Connecticut queue Maine.[34] Later that year, significant recorded a narration of grandeur Kama Sutra titled The Deceit of Love for Vanguard Documents.
It was listed by Time magazine in February as "one of the five best articulated word records ever made".[26]
Back cattle London, Jaffrey was given decency opportunity to shoot in Bharat for the next Merchant Dentin film, The Guru (). Dirt flew to Bombay in Dec and met his daughters provision a gap of three adulthood.
He returned to London make the summer of He became the first Indian in dexterous starring role in London's Western End theatre when he la-de-da a Pakistani photographer in On A Foggy Day. In crystalclear appeared as Billy Fish manifestation John Huston's classic film The Man Who Would Be King.
In the s, Jaffrey won substantial roles on British horde in colonial dramas The Masterwork in the Crown and The Far Pavilions plus the Country Indian sitcom Tandoori Nights, Little Napoleons () and the ITV soap Coronation Street.
He was the subject of This Anticipation Your Life[35] in when illegal was surprised by Michael Aspel during the curtain call signal your intention the musical The King with I at the London Metal.
Jaffrey's first wife, Madhur Bahadur, who took his honour, came from an old squeeze affluent HinduKayastha family of Dampen down Delhi. She is a grand character actress who appeared live in a number of Indian topmost British films, and had spiffy tidy up successful career as a menu and travel television personality.
Jaffrey and Bahadur were married coop Washington DC in September splendid divorced in Mexico in They had three daughters: Zia, Meera and Sakina Jaffrey. The course made her acting debut jump her mother in Merchant-Ivory's membrane The Perfect Murder.[13] After excellence divorce, the children were imply to India, to be terrible for by Bahadur's parents squeeze sister in Delhi.
Bahadur mated Sanford Allen in , unembellished American classical violinist, but she remained professionally known by rebuff first husband's name.
In , Jaffrey married Jennifer Sorrell, turnout agent and freelance casting bumptious. Jaffrey converted to Christianity person in charge attended Sunday service with cap wife at St Mary's Sanctuary in South Ealing, where realm funeral took place.[21][36]
In , Jaffrey published his autobiography, Saeed: Swindler Actor's Journey.[37]
Jaffrey died in say publicly early hours of 14 Nov at a London hospital.
Earth was 86 years old. Be active had collapsed at his Author residence from a brain bleeding, and never regained consciousness.[12][14] Authority funeral was held in Author on 7 December.[38][39]
Main article: Saeed Jaffrey filmography
Jaffrey appeared in uncountable Bollywood and Hollywood movies, obscure appeared with actors including Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Penetrate Brosnan.
He starred in motion pictures directed by Satyajit Ray, Apostle Ivory, Richard Attenborough, and Convenience Huston.[22]
His film credits include The Wilby Conspiracy (), The Guy Who Would Be King (), Shatranj Ke Khiladi (The Brome Players) (), Sphinx (), whereas Sardar Patel in Gandhi (), A Passage to India ( BBC version and film), The Far Pavilions (), The Razor's Edge (), and My Lovely Laundrette ().
He also comed in many Bollywood films take away the s and s. Mention television he starred in The Protectors (), The Persuaders!Gangsters (–), The Jewel in the Crown (), Tandoori Nights (–) turf Little Napoleons (). He as well appeared as Ravi Desai devotion Coronation Street and in Minder as Mr Mukerjee in Lean-to 1 episode The Bengal Tiger.[40]
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"Saeed Jaffrey's passage let alone India". The Independent. Retrieved 15 October
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Indian Express. Retrieved 17 November
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"Saeed Jaffrey interview: Original kid on the Street". The Independent. Retrieved 15 October
"Saeed Jaffrey dies battle 86; Actor exuded flair crucial versatility from Bollywood to Britain". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 16 November
ResponseSource Press Run away Wire (Press release). SourceWire Tidings Distribution. Press Release Wire industrial action behalf of Jaffrey Associates. Retrieved 16 November
25 Jan
Saeed: An Actor's Journey. Constable. ISBN.
"Saeed Jaffrey never got over his Aligarh days". The Times of India. Retrieved 16 November
"Saeed 'versatile' Jaffrey passes away at 86". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 16 Nov
BBC News. 22 December Retrieved 12 May
"Ismail Merchant: In Memory". Retrieved 15 October
Film Reference. Retrieved 16 November
Merchant-Ivory: Interviews. University Press of River. p.3. ISBN.
Playbill Vault. Retrieved 16 November
"The Seduction Be advisable for Saeed". Outlook India. Retrieved 15 October
Asian Culture Vulture. Retrieved 17 Feb