Saeed Jaffrey (actor)

Saeed Jaffrey (Hindustani pronunciation: [sɐiːd̪ d͡ʒɑːfɾiː]; 8 January 1929 – 15 November 2015) was a British-Indian actor. His career covered film, radio, stage and television roles over six decades and more than 150 British, American, and Indian movies. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was considered to be Britain's highest-profile Asian actor, thanks to his leading roles in the film My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and television series The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Tandoori Nights (1985–1987) and Little Napoleons (1994). He played an instrumental part in bringing together filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, and acted in several of their Merchant Ivory Productions films such as The Guru (1969), Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures (1978), The Courtesans of Bombay (1983) and The Deceivers (1988). Jaffrey broke into Indian films with Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977) for which he won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award in 1978. His cameo role as the paanwala Lallan Miyan in Chashme Buddoor (1981) won him popularity with Indian audiences. He became a household name in India with his roles in Raj Kapoor's Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) and Henna (1991), both of which won him nominations for the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. Jaffrey was the first Asian to receive British and Canadian film award nominations. In 1995 he was appointed an OBE in recognition of his services to drama, the first Asian to receive this honour. His memoirs, Saeed: An Actor's Journey, were published in 1998. He died at a hospital in London on 15 November 2015, after collapsing from a brain haemorrhage at his home. He was posthumously given the Padma Shri award in January 2016. Saeed Jaffrey was born on 8 January, 1929 to a Punjabi Muslim family in Malerkotla in the Punjab Province of British India (now in Punjab, India). At that time, his maternal grandfather, Khan Bahadur Fazle Imam of Banur, was the Dewan or Prime Minister of the princely state of Malerkotla. His father, Dr Hamid Hussain Jaffrey, was a physician and a civil servant with the Health Services department of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh in colonial India. Hamid's wife and the mother of Saeed Jaffrey was Hamida Begum. Jaffrey had two brothers, Waheed and Hameed, and a sister, Shagufta. Jaffrey and his family moved from one medical posting to another within the United Provinces, living in cities like Muzaffarnagar, Lucknow, Mirzapur, Kanpur, Aligarh, Mussoorie, Gorakhpur and Jhansi. His father was a doctor in government service who was posted in many rural areas across the United Provinces and the family invariably moved with him. At the time of his birth, Jaffrey's maternal grandfather was the diwan (first minister) of Malerkotla State. In 1938, Jaffrey joined Minto Circle School at Aligarh Muslim University where he developed his talent for mimicry. In 1939 he played the role of Dara Shikoh in a school play about Aurangzeb. At Aligarh, Jaffrey also mastered the Urdu language and attended riding school. At the local cinemas in Aligarh, he saw many Bollywood movies and became a fan of Motilal, Prithviraj Kapoor, Noor Mohammed Charlie, Fearless Nadia, Kanan Bala and Durga Khote. In 1941 at Mussoorie, Jaffrey attended Wynberg Allen School, a Church of England public school, where he picked up British-accented English. He played the role of the Cockney cook, Mason, in the annual school play, R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End. After completing his Senior Cambridge there, Jaffrey attended St. George's College, Mussoorie, an all-boys' Roman Catholic school run by Brothers of Saint Patrick. He played the role of Kate Hardcastle in the annual school play, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer. At Mussoorie, Jaffrey and his brother Waheed would often sneak out at night to watch British and American films at the local theatres. In 1945, Jaffrey gained admission to Allahabad University where he completed his BA in English literature in 1948 and MA in medieval Indian literature in 1950. At Allahabad, Jaffrey learned about Hindu religion and mythology for the first time. While visiting his father in Gorakhpur in the winter of 1945, Jaffrey discovered the BBC World Service on the shortwave radio. When India gained independence from Britain on 15 August 1947 Jaffrey heard Jawaharlal Nehru's inaugural speech on All India Radio as the Prime Minister of India, titled "Tryst with Destiny". The partition of India caused all of Jaffrey's relatives in New Delhi and Bannoor, Punjab, to migrate to Pakistan. Jaffrey was awarded his MFA in drama from the Catholic University of America in 1957. In February 1951, Jaffrey travelled to New Delhi to try his luck as a cartoonist, writer or broadcaster. He successfully auditioned as an announcer at All India Radio. He started his radio career as an English Announcer with the External Services of All India Radio on 2 April 1951 for a salary of ₹250 / month. Unable to afford a place to stay and having no relatives in the city, Jaffrey spent his nights on the bench behind the office building. Mehra Masani, the station director, eventually arranged for him to share a room at the YMCA for ₹30 / month. Jaffrey bought a Raleigh bicycle for the commute. Along with Frank Thakurdas and "Benji" Benegal, Jaffrey set up the Unity Theatre, an English-language repertory company at New Delhi in 1951. The first production was of Jean Cocteau's play The Eagle Has Two Heads, with Madhur Bahadur playing the role of the Queen's Reader opposite Saeed as Azrael. Unity Theatre subsequently staged J. B. Priestley's Dangerous Corner, Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, Molière's The Bourgeois Gentleman, Christopher Fry's The Firstborn and T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party . After graduation from Miranda House in 1953, Bahadur joined All India Radio. She worked as a disc jockey at night. Jaffrey and Bahadur, having fallen "madly in love", dated at Gaylord, a restaurant in Connaught Place. At Unity Theatre, Bahadur and Jaffrey acted together in Christopher Fry's A Phoenix Too Frequent, followed by Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Tennessee Williams' Auto-da-Fé, and William Shakespeare's Othello. In early 1955, Bahadur left to study drama formally at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), a drama school in the UK. In late 1955, Jaffrey won a Fulbright scholarship to study drama in America the following year. In spring 1956, he approached Bahadur's parents in Delhi for her hand in marriage but they refused because they felt that his financial prospects as an actor did not appear sound. In summer 1956, Jaffrey resigned from his position as Radio Director at All India Radio. He flew to London on his way to America and proposed to Bahadur. She refused but gave him a tour of RADA where she pointed out a young Peter O'Toole and other English stage actors who would later achieve prominence. A few days later, Jaffrey boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth to sail across the Atlantic Ocean from Southampton to New York City. In 1957, Jaffrey graduated from the Catholic University of America's Department of Speech and Drama and was selected to act in summer stock plays at St. Michael's Playhouse in Winooski, Vermont. Jaffrey arranged for Bahadur to join him there after she graduated from RADA. He played the lead in three of the plays put on by St. Michael's Playhouse: Sakini, the Okinawan interpreter in The Teahouse of the August Moon; barrister Sir Wilfred Robarts in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution; and Voice of God, with Gino, in The Little World of Don Camillo. In September 1957, Bahadur and Jaffrey returned to Washington, D.C. where Jaffrey rehearsed for the 1957 – 58 season with the National Players, a professional touring company that performed classical plays all over America. He was the first Indian to take Shakespearean plays on a tour of the United States. He was cast in the role of Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. He played Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew. Midway