| Tom Alter | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1950 Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1976–present |
Tom Alter (born 1950) is an Indian actor of American origin. As a thespian and television actor, he is best known for his work in Bollywood,[1][2] but has also worked in the theatre. [3]
In 2008, he was awarded Padma Shri by the Indian government.[4][5]
Contents |
A native of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India,[6] Tom Alter is the son of American Christian missionaries of English and Scottish ancestry and has lived for years in Mumbai and the Himalayan hill station of Landour. His father was born in Sialkot. His elder sister Martha has a PhD in Sanskrit and his brother John is a poet and a teacher.[1]
As a child, he studied Hindi and Urdu and, consequently, he has occasionally been referred to as the "Blue-eyed saheb with the impeccable Hindi."
He studied at the Film and Television Institute of India. His major inspiration to enter films was Rajesh Khanna. He confessed in an interview "I still dream of being Rajesh Khanna. For me, in the early 1970s, he was the only hero — romantic to the core, not larger than life, so Indian and real — he was my hero; the reason I came into films and he still is."[7]
Tom taught at St. Thomas school in Jagadhri (Haryana) for $50 a month before taking to films. He worked as a sports teacher at the school. He used to coach cricket in the school. His crisp columns on sport have enthralled readers of popular newspapers and journals to which he contributed for ten long years.[8] He loved his job and the small town of Jagadhri. In his own words, “There was something very warm about Jagadhri. I remained a teacher there until the day I watched Rajesh Khanna romance Sharmila in Aaradhna. That was the beginning of my addiction to cinema.”[9]
Alter is fluent in Hindi and knowledgeable of Indian culture. He has worked for noted filmmakers like Satyajit Ray in Shatranj Ke Khiladi and is remembered for his role as a British officer in Kranti. In Sardar, the 1993 film biography of Indian leader Sardar Patel, which focused on the events surrounding the partition and independence of India, Tom portrayed Lord Mountbatten of Burma. He has also played Indian characters in Indian television series, such as the long-running Junoon, in which he was the sadistic mob lord Keshav Kalsi. He also acted in Hollywood movie One Night with the King with Peter O'Toole.
Alter has written such books as The Longest Race, Rerun at Rialto, The Best in the world, and is also a sports journalist with a special interest in cricket, a game on which he has written extensively in publications such as Sportsweek, Outlook, Cricket talk, Sunday Observer and Debonair. He plays cricket for a film industry team MCC (Match Cut Club), which includes Naseeruddin Shah, Satish Shah, Vishal Bhardwaj, Aamir Khan, Nana Patekar, Bhupinder Singh and Amarinder Sangha.
In 1996 he appeared in the Assamese-language film Adajya, and in 2007 acted in the theatrical reproduction of William Dalrymple's City of Djinns alongside Zohra Sehgal and Manish Joshi Bismil. He also appeared in a solo play 'Maulana', based on Maulana Azad for which he has received much critical acclaim. He has also received praise for his role in the art film Ocean of An Old Man, which has been screened at film festivals around the world.
Alter's first cousin Stephen Alter, also born and raised in India, is a notable author and teacher. Both are graduates of Woodstock School, Mussoorie. Alter has also worked as the red robe guru in Mukesh Khanna's production Shaktiman (1998–2002). Tom has also acted in the role of a doctor in a Rajat Kapoor's comedy movie "Bheja Fry".
In April 2011, he acted in a short film "Yours, Maria" by Chirag Vadgama playing the lead role in the movie.
Tom is also a seasoned theater actor. In 1977 he along with Naseeruddin Shah and Benjamin Gilani formed a theatre group called Motley Productions. Their first play was Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, which was staged at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai on 29 July 1979. He has been performing at Prithvi Theater ever since, his latest being an adaptation of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer's "Me Grandad'ad an Elephant" which was performed on 7 June 2011. He has also worked with the New Delhi theatre group Pierrot's Troupe.
Presently he is performing in TV serials such as "Yaha ke Hum Sikandar" (as a generous school teacher) and "Shama" telecasted on Doordarshan. [3]