Soumitra Chatterjee
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Soumitra Chatterjee (Bengali: সৌমিত্র চট্টোপাধ্যায় Shoumitro Chôţţopaddhae) (born January 19, 1935) is a Bengali actor from India, most famous for his frequent collaborations with the great Indian director Satyajit Ray.
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[edit] Background
Soumitra studied at the University of Calcutta, graduating with honours in English literature.
[edit] Satyajit Ray
Soumitra's film debut came in 1959 in Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar. As noted on the official website for Ray, "At that time, Soumitra Chatterjee was a radio announcer and had only played a small role in a Bengali stage production" [1]. Soumitra would eventually collaborate with Ray on fourteen films. His centrality to Ray's work is akin to other key collaborations in the history of cinema - Mifune & Kurosawa, Mastroianni & Fellini, or De Niro & Scorsese. He also worked with Sharmila Tagore in a number of Ray films.
[edit] Other work
Besides working with Ray, Soumitra excelled in collaborations with other well-known Bengali directors such as Mrinal Sen and Tapan Sinha. He played the role of Shekhar in the 1969 Ajoy Kar version of Parineeta. Soumitra has also been active in Bengali theatre as an actor, playwright and director. He is a well-known poetry reciter, and has acted on TV and in indigenous folk drama (jatra).
[edit] Honors and awards
Soumitra has received the 'Officier des Arts et Metiers', the highest award for arts given by the French government, and a lifetime achievement award from Italy. He turned down the honorary Padma Shri award from the Indian government in the seventies; more recently, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India. He has been the subject of a full-length documentary by French director Catherine Berge.
[edit] Select filmography
[edit] External links
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