‘Award-winning’ actor Om Puri dies aged 66 – Reynolds, Fisher laid to rest

This news has been read 4622 times!

MUMBAI, Jan 7, (Agencies): Om Puri, the acclaimed Indian actor who appeared in hit films including “Gandhi”, “City of Joy” and “East is East”, died Friday after suffering a heart attack.

The award-winning character actor, whose career ranged from arthouse Indian films to Hollywood epics, died of a heart attack at his home in Mumbai, a family member told the Press Trust of India. He was 66.

“It’s really a great loss,” the veteran scriptwriter Javed Akhtar told PTI.

“Wonderful person, great actor and with such impressive body of work, right from Satyajit Ray to any commercial Hindi film to films in US and Pakistan,” he said, referring to the renowned Indian director.

Bollywood stars tweeted their shock at the news, which broke early Friday, with Amitabh Bachchan saying he was “shocked” to learn of Puri’s death.

“A dear friend, a lovable colleague and an exceptional talent … in grief!” he said.

Actress Priyanka Chopra said it was “The end of an era”, adding, “the legacy lives on”.

Puri made his debut in the mid-1970s before going on to star in a number of major Hindi hits as well as, controversially, in some Pakistani movies.

He was known in India for his role in edgy arthouse movies such as Aakrosh (1980) and Ardh Satya (1982), for which he won the National Indian Film Award for Best Actor.

But he also acted in major Hollywood hits, featuring alongside the likes of Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks and Patrick Swayze.

“Though I did try to resist commercial films for quite some time, I succumbed to it finally as money was equally important as art,” Puri wrote in his autobiography.

“But as an artist I never compromised on what I had to do on-screen, even if the film was not up to the standard.”

Appeared

Puri appeared in a number of British films, notably Richard Attenborough’s 1982 epic on the life of India’s independence movement leader Mahatma Gandhi.

He starred in the 1999 Bafta-winning comedy “East is East” as a fish-and-chip shop owner who struggles to get his British family to follow the strict Pakistani customs he is used to.

He was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India, for his services to the film industry and in 2004 received an honorary OBE for contributions to British cinema.

The award-winning actor made an impact on the other side of the Atlantic too, appearing alongside Nicholson in “Wolf” (1994) and Val Kilmer in “The Ghost and the Darkness” (1996).

In 2007 he played Pakistani general Muhammad Zia ul Haq in Hollywood film “Charlie Wilson’s War”, which starred Hanks and Julia Roberts.

Puri — who was born in Ambala, now in Haryana state — to a Punjabi family in 1950, also starred opposite legendary British actress Helen Mirren in the 2014 film “The Hundred Foot Journey”.

He was sometimes in the headlines for the wrong reasons, enduring an acrimonious and well-publicised split from his wife Nandita Puri.

In October he was accused of insulting Indian soldiers shortly after 19 were killed in an attack on an army base in Kashmir when he asked, “who had asked the soldiers to join the army?”.

India blamed Pakistan for the raid and Puri was actually arguing against banning Pakistani artists from working in Bollywood films, but his comments sparked a furore on social media.

 

Carrie Fisher, who has been laid to rest alongside her mother Debbie Reynolds, was adored by family, friends and fans for her gallows humor and frank talk about her struggles with mental illness.

What better home for her ashes then, her brother Todd Fisher and daughter Billie Lourd decided, than a porcelain urn in the shape of an outsized anti-depressant?

“Carrie’s favorite possession was a giant Prozac pill that she bought many years ago,” Todd Fisher said Friday as he left the private joint funeral at Forest Lawn — Hollywood Hills for his mother and sister. “She loved it, and it was in her house, and Billie and I felt it was where she’d want to be,” he said.

Other than Carrie Fisher’s cremation and unique urn, nearly no details were revealed about the ceremony, or about what form the two women’s graves took.

They’ll have plenty of celebrity company at the sprawling, hillside cemetery just across the Los Angeles River from Warner Bros and Disney studios, including Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, Dick Van Patten, Liberace and Florence Henderson.

The funeral came a day after the two actresses were eulogized by family and close friends at a private memorial service at their neighboring homes in Coldwater Canyon, about 10 miles west.

Fisher, who played Princess Leia in four “Star Wars” films, died at age 60 on Dec 27. Reynolds, star of “Singin’ in the Rain” and many other classic musicals, died a day later at age 84.

Todd Fisher said Friday he’ll remember his mother and sister most for their resilience, and said both reminded him of Reynold’s role in 1964’s “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”.

Also:

LOS ANGELES: Actress Francine York, who had more than 150 television and film credits, died Friday in Van Nuys, California, She was 80 and had cancer, according to her close friend Pepper Jay.

York once declared the 1973 cult film “The Doll Squad” her most popular film, but she played everything from an alien to a exotic belly dancer. On “Batman”, she played Lydia Limpet, the henchwoman of the Bookworm (Roddy McDowall). Her credits include guest roles on “Bewitched”, “General Hospital”, “I Dream of Jeannie” and “My Favorite Martian”. She also appeared in “Tickle Me” with Elvis Presley. Her more recent roles include “Family Man” with Nicolas Cage, “Hot in Cleveland” and “Star Trek: Progeny”.

Born Francine Yerich, she was raised in Aurora, Minnesota and Cleveland, where she performed in school plays. She danced as a showgirl in San Francisco before moving to Los Angeles, where she played the Moulin Rouge nightclub. Her screen career was launched when Jerry Lewis cast her in “It’s Only Money”, and she went on to appear in five more Lewis films.

She appeared in sci fi and cult movies like “Curse of the Swamp People” and “The Centerfold Girls”, often costumed in latex or leather. She told USA Today in an interview last year, “The studios would often hire me because I was attractive, then realized I could act, too!”

For 10 years, she was the companion of director Vincent Sherman, who died in 2006.

An enthusiastic hostess and chef for dinner parties, she also appeared on culinary shows and wrote recipes and fitness programs which appeared in national health magazines. She was in the process of writing her autobiography when she developed cancer.

She leaves no immediate survivors.

This news has been read 4622 times!