Om Puri Indian actor Date of Birth: 18.10.1950 Country: India

1. Early Life
2. Career

Early Life

Om Puri was born into a Punjabi Hindu family on March 18, 1950, in Ambala, India. His father, Rajesh Puri, worked for the railways and in the Indian Army. Due to a lack of birth certificates or records, his family was unsure of his exact date and year of birth, but his mother told him he was born two days after the Hindu festival Dussehra. When he began school, his uncle chose March 9, 1950, as his "official" birthday; however, upon moving to Mumbai, Puri reverted to the October 18 date when Dussehra fell in 1950.

Puri came from an impoverished background. When he was six years old, his father, who was a railway worker, was imprisoned on charges of cement theft. This led to their family becoming homeless. To make ends meet, Puri's brother, Ved Prakash Puri, worked as a coolie (railway porter), while Puri worked at a local tea stall, did odd jobs, and collected coal from nearby railway tracks to support his family. He and his brother's children were later raised by a maid named Shanti.

Throughout his work, Puri continued his education. After completing his primary schooling, he joined the National School of Drama in Delhi to study theatrical acting. One of his fellow students at the NSD, who became a lifelong friend, Naseeruddin Shah, encouraged Puri to follow him to the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune (today's Puna). In an interview with The Times of India, Puri later recounted that his family was so poor that he did not own a decent shirt when he joined FTII. According to Shah, Puri was disillusioned with his education at FTII and also failed to pay his fees—when he became successful, the institute wrote off the £280 debt, which Puri refused to pay due to the "excitement" of "owing them money."

Career

Puri's first film role was in the children's film "Chor Chor Chhup Ja" (1975). During this time, he also worked as an actor in a studio to make ends meet, where future actors such as Gulshan Grover and Anil Kapoor were among his students. Puri subsequently acted in numerous Indian films, as well as several films shot in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Puri made his mainstream film debut in the 1976 Marathi film "Ghashiram Kotwal," which was based on Vijay Tendulkar's Marathi play of the same name. It was directed by K. Hariharan and Mani Kaul, in collaboration with 16 graduates of FTII. He claimed to have been paid "peanuts" for what became his breakthrough performance.

Along with Amrish Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, and Smita Patil, he was among the leading actors who starred in art-house films such as "Bhavni Bhavai" (1980), "Sadgati" (1981), "Ardh Satya" (1982), "Mirch Masala" (1986), and "Dharavi" (1992).

He was highly acclaimed for his performances in many unconventional roles, such as the tribal victim in "Aakrosh" (1980), the manager Jimmy in "Disco Dancer" (1982), the police inspector in "Ardh Satya" (1982), for which he won the National Film Award for Best Actor, the meek husband in "Sipee and Me" (1984), the uncle Vinod in "Zamaana" (1985), the leader of a Sikh militant cell in "Maachis" (1996); returning as a tough cop in the commercial film "Gupt" in 1997; and as the resilient father of a slain soldier in "Dope" (2003).

In 1999, Puri starred in the Kannada film "AK 47" as a tough cop trying to protect a city from the criminal underworld—the film became a huge commercial hit and Puri's performance is fondly remembered. He dubbed his own voice for the Kannada dialogues. The same year, he starred in the successful British comedy-drama film "East Is East," in which he played a first-generation Pakistani immigrant in Northern England struggling to come to terms with his far more Westernized children.

Puri had a cameo appearance in the widely acclaimed film "Gandhi" (1982, directed by Richard Attenborough). By the mid-1990s, he began playing character roles in mainstream Hindi cinema, where his roles were more tailored to mass audiences rather than film critics. He became known worldwide, having starred in several British films, such as "My Son the Fanatic" (1997), "East Is East" (1999), and the "The Parole Officer" (2001). He appeared in Hollywood films, including "City of Joy" (1992), with Patrick Swayze, "Wolf" (1994) with Jack Nicholson, and "The Ghost and the Darkness" (1996) with Val Kilmer. In 2007, he appeared as General Zia-ul-Haq in "Charlie Wilson's War," which starred Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

He worked in Hindi television serials such as "Kakkaji Kaheen" (1988) (meaning "Uncle Speaks"), playing the chewing paan-addicted "Kakkaji," who was a parody of politicians, and "Mr. Yogi" (1989) as the courteous "Sutradhaar" who loved to pull the main character's leg. These two serials further highlighted Om Puri's versatility as a comedian. He received critical acclaim for his work in Govind Nihalani's television film "Tamas" (1988), based on the Hindi novel of the same name.

He played comic roles in Hindi films, such as "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro," which achieved cult status, followed by "Chachi 420" (1997), "Hera Pheri" (2000), "Chor Machaye Shor" (2002), "Deewane Hue Pagal," "Chup Chup Ke," "Kismet Connection," and "Malamaal Weekly" (2006) and OMG. He regularly featured in films directed by Priyadarshan and Kamal Haasan.

His notable roles in commercial Hindi films included "Drohkaal," "In Custody," "Narasimha," "Ghayaal," "Mri