Mumbai - Veteran Indian actor Om Puri, who
successfully straddled movie careers in Bollywood and the West,
died on Friday in Mumbai.
Puri, 66, suffered cardiac arrest, his friend and actor
Anupam Kher told Reuters.
Puri cut his teeth in the 1980s with alternative art cinema
that found a niche audience in India, playing several memorable
characters that depicted the angst of the times.
He also worked in several Hollywood and British films,
including "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", "East is East", and
most recently in "The Hundred-Foot Journey", opposite Britain's
Helen Mirren.
"He showed that you didn't have to be 'fair' and
'good-looking' to be a protagonist," Saeed Akhtar Mirza, who
directed Puri in one of his earliest films, "Albert Pinto Ko
Gussa Kyon Aata Hai" (Why does Albert Pinto get Angry?), told
Reuters.
"It was just the force of his personality and his
performance."
Several Bollywood stars, fans and Prime Minister Narendra
Modi took to Twitter to pay their respects.
"Who dare say Om Puri is no more? He lives through his
work," actor Kamal Hassan tweeted.
An alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India and
later, the National School of Drama, the actor's work in Govind
Nihalani's "Ardh Satya" (Half-Truth) and later "Aakrosh" (Rage)
won him several accolades.
Along with Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil,
Puri was seen as one of the stars of the alternative cinema
movement that contrasted sharply with Bollywood's often crass
content.
His distinctive baritone, and ability to switch seamlessly
between art house, Bollywood, Hollywood and British film, made
him an international star, one of the few Indian actors to cross
over to the West before the likes Irrfan Khan and Priyanka
Chopra made the jump.