Amrish Puri’s 87th Birthday

Amrish Puri’s 87th Birthday (22 June 1932 – 12 January 2005) was an Indian actor, who was an important figure in Indian theatre and cinema. He worked with notable playwrights of the time, such as Satyadev Dubey and Girish Karnad. He is remembered for playing iconic villainous roles in Hindi cinema as well as other Indian and international film industries. To Indian audiences, he is the most remembered for his role as Mogambo in Shekhar Kapur's Hindi film Mr. India (1987), and to Western audiences, he is best known as Mola Ram in Steven Spielberg's Hollywood film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Puri has won three Filmfare Awards for Best Supporting Actor.

Amrish Puri’s: Early life

Amrish Puri was born in Nawanshahr, Punjab in a Khatri family of Nihal Singh Puri and Ved Kaur. He had four siblings, elder brothers Chaman Puri and Madan Puri (both of whom were also actors), elder sister Chandrakanta, and a younger brother, Harish Puri. He was the first cousin of the actor and singer K. L. Saigal.

Amrish Puri’s: Career

Amrish Puri acted in more than 400 films between 1967 and 2005 and was one of the most successful villains in Bollywood. Puri first came to Mumbai following the footsteps of his elder brothers- Madan Puri and Chaman Puri, who have already established actors known for playing villainous roles. He failed his first screen test, and instead found a job with the Employees' State Insurance Corporation Ministry of Labour and Employment (ESIC). At the same time, he started performing at the Prithvi Theatre in plays written by Satyadev Dubey. He eventually became well known as a stage actor and won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1979. This theatre recognition soon led to work in television ads and eventually to films at the relatively late age of 40.

Puri went on to work in Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Hollywood, Punjabi, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil films. Though he was successful in many regional films, he is best known for his work in Bollywood cinema.

Through the 1970s, Puri often worked in supporting roles, usually as the henchman of the main villain. He was noticed in the 1980 super-hit movie Hum Paanch in which he played the main villain. After that, he started getting cast as the main villain in other movies. In 1982, Puri played the main villain, Jaguar Choudhary in the Subhash Ghai super-hit film Vidhaata. That same year, he again played the main villain, JK in the movie Shakti starring two legends- Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan. Next, in 1983, Subhash Ghai again cast him as the main villain, Pasha in the hit movie Hero. Puri regularly featured in subsequent Subhash Ghai films.

Puri reigned supreme in villainous roles in the 1980s and 1990s. In those decades, there was hardly any Bollywood film that did not feature Puri as a villain. His dominating screen presence and baritone voice made him stand out amongst the other villains of the day.

Google Doodle Today Amrish Puri’s 87th Birthday

If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again—and you might end up like Indian film actor Amrish Puri, who overcame an early setback on the way to fulfilling his big-screen dreams. Today’s Doodle by Pune-based guest artist Debangshu Moulik celebrates the life and legacy of the renowned actor, born in Punjab on this day in 1932. Puri landed his first role at age 39 and went on to portray some of the most memorable villains in the history of Indian cinema.

The younger brother of character actors Madan Puri and Chaman Puri, Amrish auditioned for a lead role in 1954 but was rejected. After working in the theater and doing voiceover parts, he made his Bollywood debut in 1971’s Reshma Aur Shera. A decade later, he broke into Hollywood as Khan, a supporting role in the Oscar-winning movie, Gandhi.

He was later cast as Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, after initially turning down director Steven Spielberg’s offer. “Amrish is my favorite villain,” said Spielberg, who persisted until Puri said yes. “The best the world has ever produced and ever will!”

Appearing in more than 200 films in over half a dozen languages—including Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, and English—Puri gave one of his most memorable performances at age 55. Playing Mogambo in the 1987 cult classic Mr. India, Puri’s deep-voiced delivery of the dastardly line “Mogambo khush Hua” (“Mogambo is pleased”) would become his signature.