: Bollywoods gora who played both Zafar and Mountbatten and interviewed Sachin #IndiaNEWS #Bollywood By Vikas DattaRajesh Khannas performance in Aradhana so enthused this American whose family was

Bollywoods gora who played both Zafar and Mountbatten and interviewed Sachin #IndiaNEWS #Bollywood
By Vikas DattaRajesh Khannas performance in Aradhana so enthused this American whose family was long settled in India that he was determined to enter Bollywood. And Tom Alter did succeed, moving from playing the stereotypical Briton/foreigner to more nuanced roles in a string of mainstream films and serials, and culminating as the only Indian actor to have acted as both Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and Lord Mountbatten.
An avid cricket fan, Alter did the first-ever TV interview of Sachin Tendulkar, played regularly (in a team called MCC Match Cut Club along with Naseeruddin Shah, Vishal Bhardwaj and Aamir Khan), wrote much about the game, including in top newspapers and magazines, coached students in his short teaching career, and also has the distinction of being the only Bollywood actor who has given commentary in a one-day match.
Born on this day in 1950 in a family of missionaries settled in India since roughly the time when Mahatma Gandhi came back for good from overseas, Thomas Beach Tom Alter distinguished himself in a four-decade entertainment career, where he assured himself a firm place on the Indian cultural expanse, given the range of roles he essayed.
With his firm command, and perfect diction, in Hindi and Urdu with only a slight trace of an endearing accent, Alter was an obvious fixture as a British officer in any Bollywood film or TV serial depicting the Raj.
Apart from two key figures spanning a momentous near-century of the countrys history, the blue-eyed Gora Sahab also appeared as Lord Clive, Lord Wellesley, Brigadier Reginald Dyer, the butcher of Jallianwala Bagh, but also as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (twice), Mirza Ghalib, Sahir Ludhianvi, and for good measure, as the King of Paristan, and the Mahaguru.
Then, Alter did not confine himself to the big and small screen and not only in Bollywood, but in Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Kumaoni, Marathi, and Malayalam cinema too and the stage.
After his Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, training, he landed a small role in a Dev Anand film. His real debut, however, happened with Ramanand Sagars Charas (1976), where he is Dharmendras customs department boss, and then he gained greater prominence with Satyajit Rays Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977).
As Capt Weston, a blond-haired, luxuriantly-moustachioed and sideburn-sporting British officer in Wajid Ali Shahs Lucknow, he appears quite early in the film, briefing the new Resident, General James Outram (Richard Attenborough), about the ruler and appearing quite impressed with his literary talents.
At his superiors urging, he also recites one of the Nawabs shers: Sadma na pahunche koi mere jism-ezar par, ahista dalna phool mere mazar par/Har chand khaak mein tha magar ta falak gaya/Dhoka hai asmaan ka mere ghubar par.

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