Acting legend Soumitra Chatterjee dies aged 85
Legendary Indian actor Soumitra Chatterjee (85), who starred in over 300 movies, six decade long career in Bengali language films and famous for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray has died from Covid complications.Although he tested negative after he was admitted to hospital in Kolkata city on 6th October, his condition deteriorated and was put on a ventilator in the last week of October, died on Monday morning.
Chaterjee’s work in much-feted Award-winning Apu Triology series followed the life of a man who grew up in a Bengali village. The films garnered critical acclaim, and put Indian cinema on the global map.
The third movie of the triology Apur Sansar, which was released in 1959, was also Chatterjee’s debut film. And went on as the lead actor in 14 of Ray’s films.
Chatterjee was awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema. In 2012 and in 2018, he was given France’s highest award, the Legion of Honour.
When Chatterjee who starred in several plays was in college a friend introduced him to Satyajit Ray by chance, which eventually led to Chatterjee’s film debut.
Chatterjee also played a Sherlock Holmes-like detective in Sonar Kella an effete bridegroom in Devi, a hot-tempered north Indian taxi driver in Abhijan, a city slicker in Aranyer Din Ratri, and a mild-mannered village priest in Asani Sanket. He played what Saton called a “thinly veiled protrait” of Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore in Charulata, one of Ray’s most admire films.
Ray moulded his favourite actor, lending him books on cinema and often taking him to watch Sunday morning shows of Hollywood films in Kolkata.
Ray who died in 1992, had said that Chatterjee was an intelligent actor and “given bad material, he turns out a bad performance”.