Soumitra Chatterjee, an acting legend, dies at 85

Legendary actor Soumitra Chatterjee, famed for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray, has died from COVID-19 complications.

News Deskbdnews24.com
Published : 15 Nov 2020, 06:06 AM
Updated : 15 Nov 2020, 01:14 PM

The 85-year-old actor was admitted to hospital in Kolkata city on Oct 6 after he tested positive for the virus. He will be mourned by fans and critics who avidly followed his six-decade-long career in Bengali language films.

Chatterjee, who starred in about 300 movies, was also an accomplished playwright, theatre actor and poet.

He tested negative a few weeks after he was admitted to hospital but his condition soon deteriorated and he was put on a ventilator in the last week of October. He died on Sunday morning.

“We declare with a heavy heart that Shri Soumitra Chatterjee breathed his last at 12:15 pm at Belle Vue Clinic today. We pay our homage to his soul,” Belle Vue Clinic, where he was admitted, said in a statement.

Chatterjee is also the first Indian film personality conferred with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest award for artists. In 2017, exactly 30 years after auteur Satyajit Ray was honoured with France’s highest civilian award, the coveted Legion of Honor, Chatterjee also received the prestigious award.

Chatterjee also worked with Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha and later in his career with Goutam Ghose, Aparna Sen and Rituparno Ghosh.

After making his debut as the adult Apu in Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959), the third part of Apu Trilogy, he went on to work in several notable films with Satyajit Ray, including Abhijan (The Expedition, 1962), Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964), Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest, 1969); Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder, 1973); Sonar Kella (The Fortress, 1974) and Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God, 1978) as Bengali detective Feluda; Hirak Rajar Deshe(1980), Ghare Baire (The Home and The World, 1984), Shakha Proshakha (1990) and Ganashatru (Enemy of the People, 1989).

He worked with Mrinal Sen in Akash Kusum (Up in the Clouds, 1965), with Tapan Sinha in Kshudhita Pashan (Hungry Stones, 1960), Jhinder Bandi (1961), Atonko (1984) and with Tarun Majumdar in Sansar Simante (1975), Ganadevata (1978).

Chatterjee also garnered critical acclaim for his directorial venture Stree Ki Patra (1986) based on Streer Patra, a Bengali short story written by Rabindranath Tagore.

He began acting when he was in school, where he starred in several plays. He was in college when a friend introduced him to Ray -- it was a chance meeting, but it eventually led to Chatterjee's film debut.

"I didn't know what to do when Mr Ray first asked me. I didn't know what was the real difference between stage and screen acting. I was afraid I'd overact," he told Marie Seton, film critic and biographer, in an interview, BBC reports.

Chatterjee's roles in more than a dozen films made by the auteur spanned a wide range.

"His chief asset was the natural sensitivity of his appearance," Seton wrote of the actor.

Ray mentored his favourite actor, lending him books on cinema and often taking him to watch Sunday morning shows of Hollywood films in Kolkata. "The entire exercise he did with a purpose, it was not as if he was taking me out on Sundays for entertainment," Chatterjee once said.

Ray, who died in 1992, had said that Chatterjee was an intelligent actor and "given bad material, he turns out a bad performance".

"Not a day passed when I do not think of Ray or discuss him or miss him. He is a constant presence in my life, if not for anything else but for the inspiration I derive when I think about him," Chatterjee told an interviewer.

Chatterjee also played the romantic lead in popular Bengali films, but his appeal, say critics, was more limited than the reigning star, Uttam Kumar.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of India's greatest filmmakers, said that on screen, Chatterjee "became the quintessential Bengali - intellectually inclined, of middle-class orientation, sensitive and likeable".

With details from BBC and The Indian Express