Saeed Jaffrey, OBE (Punjabi: ਸਈਦ ਜਾਫ਼ਰੀ, Urdu: سعید جعفری; Hindi: सईद जाफ़री; 8 January 1929 – 15 November 2015) was an Indian-born British actor who appeared on radio, stage, television and film. A gifted mimic with a sharp ear for picking up accents, he was fluent in several languages and appeared in numerous British, American and Indian movies. During the 1980s and 1990s he was considered to be Britain's highest-profile Asian actor.

He played an instrumental part in bringing together film makers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant and acted in several of their Merchant Ivory Productions films such as The Guru (1969), Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures (1978) and The Deceivers (1988).

He was the first Asian to receive British and Canadian Academy Awards nominations for his film roles. In 1995 he was named an honorary Commander of the British Empire in recognition of his services to drama, the first Asian to receive this honour.

In 1998 he released his memoirs Saeed: An Actor's Journey, writing frankly about his life from its origins in Punjab under the British Raj to his ascent as a high-profile Asian actor in Britain.

Jaffrey died from a brain hemorrhage at his home in London on 15 November 2015.

Spouses:

Madhur Jaffrey (m. 1958–66)

Jennifer Jaffrey (m. 1980–2015)

Children:

Zia Jaffrey (b. 1959)
Meera Jaffrey (b. 1960)
Sakina Jaffrey (b. 1962)

Early life and education

Jaffrey was born on 8 January, 1929 in Malerkotla, Punjab, in the princely state of that name, to a Punjabi Muslim family. At that time, his maternal grandfather, Khan Bahadur Fazle Imam, was the Dewan or Prime Minister of the princely state. His father was Dr Hamid Hussain Jaffrey, a medical doctor and a civil servant with the Health Services department of the United Provinces of British India. Saeed and his family moved from one medical posting to another within the United Provinces, living in cities like Muzaffarnagar, Lucknow, Mirzapur, Kanpur, Aligarh, Mussoorie, Gorakhpur and Jhansi.

In 1938, Jaffrey joined Minto Circle School at Aligarh Muslim University where he developed his talent for mimicry and played the role of Dara Shikoh in a school play about Aurangzeb, the last great Mughal Emperor. At Aligarh, Saeed also mastered the Urdu language and went to riding school. At the local cinemas in Aligarh, Saeed saw many Bollywood movies and became a fan of Motilal, Prithviraj Kapoor, Noor Mohammed Charlie, Fearless Nadia, Kanan Bala and Durga Khote.

In 1941 at Mussoorie Saeed attended Wynberg Allen School, a Church of England public school where he picked up British-accented English. After completing his Senior Cambridge there, Saeed went to St. George's College, Mussoorie, an all-boys' Roman Catholic school run by Brothers of Saint Patrick. Saeed played the role of Kate Hardcastle in the annual school play, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer. At Mussoorie, Saeed and his brother Waheed would often sneak out at night to watch British and American films at the local theaters.

In 1945 Saeed gained admission to Allahabad University where he completed his B.A. degree in 1948 and M.A. degree in 1950. At Allahabad, Saeed learnt about Hindu religion and mythology for the first time. While visiting his father in Gorakhpur in the winter of 1945, Saeed discovered the BBC World Service on the shortwave radio. When India gained independence from British Raj on August 15, 1947 Saeed heard Jawaharlal Nehru's inaugural speech on All India Radio as the Prime Minister of India, titled Tryst with Destiny. The partition of India caused all of Saeed's relatives in New Delhi and Bannoor, Punjab to flee to Pakistan.

Saeed was awarded his second post-graduate degree, in drama, by The Catholic University of America in 1957.

Career

In February 1951 Saeed traveled to New Delhi to try his luck as a cartoonist, writer or broadcaster. He successfully auditioned for an announcer at All India Radio and was accepted. He started his radio career as an English Announcer with the External Services of All India Radio on 2nd April 1951 for a salary of ₹250 / month. Unable to afford a place to stay and having no relatives in the city, Saeed spent his nights on the bench behind the office building. Mehra Masani, the station director, eventually arranged for him to share a room at the YMCA for ₹30 / month. Saeed bought a Raleigh bicycle for the commute. Saeed would serve All India Radio till 1956.

Along with Frank Thakurdas and 'Benji' Benegal, Saeed set up Unity Theatre, an English language repertory company at New Delhi in 1951. The first production was Jean Cocteau's play The Eagle Has Two Heads, with Madhur Bahadur playing the role of the Queen's Reader opposite Saeed as Azrael. Unity Theatre went on to stage J. B. Priestley's Dangerous Corner, Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, Molière's The Bourgeois Gentleman, Christopher Fry's The Firstborn.

After graduation from Miranda House in 1953, Madhur joined All India Radio. She worked as a disc jockey at night. Saeed and Madhur fell in love and dated at Gaylord, a restaurant in Connaught Place. At Unity Theatre, Madhur and Saeed acted together in Christopher Fry's A Phoenix Too Frequent, followed by Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Tennessee Williams' Auto-da-Fé, and William Shakespeare's Othello.

In early 1955, Madhur left to study drama formally at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), a drama school in UK. In late 1955, Saeed Jaffrey won a Fulbright scholarship to study drama in America the following year. In spring 1956, he approached Madhur's parents in Delhi for her hand in marriage but they refused because they felt that his financial prospects as an actor did not appear sound. In summer 1956, Saeed flew to London on his way to America and proposed to Madhur. She refused but gave him a tour of RADA where she pointed out a young Peter O'Toole and other English stage actors who would later become famous. Saeed boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth to sail across the Atlantic Ocean from Southampton to New York City.

In 1957 Saeed graduated from Catholic University of America's Department of Speech and Drama and was selected to act in summer stock plays at St. Michael’s Playhouse in Winooski, Vermont. Saeed arranged for Madhur to join him there after she graduated from RADA.

In September 1957 Madhur and Saeed Jaffrey returned to Washington, D.C. where Saeed rehearsed for the 1957 - 58 season with the National Players, a professional touring company that performed classical plays all over America. He was the first Indian to take Shakespearean plays on a tour of the United States. Midway through the tour, Saeed returned to Washington DC from Miami to marry Madhur in a modest civil ceremony.[32][33] The next day, they traveled to New York City where Madhur got a job as a tour guide to the United Nations while Saeed did public relations work for the Government of India Tourist Office. They lived on West 27th Street, between Sixth and Broadway. Between 1959 and 1962 Madhur and Saeed had three daughters, Meera, Zia and Sakina.

In 1958 Saeed joined Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and played the lead in an Off-Broadway production of Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding. At this time, he met Ismail Merchant who had recently arrived from Bombay to attend the New York University Stern School of Business. Merchant approached Saeed with a proposal to put on a Broadway production of The Little Clay Cart starring the Jaffreys. Saeed took him home for dinner, where he met Madhur for the first time. In 1959, James Ivory, then a budding film maker from California, approached Saeed to provide the narration for his short film about Indian miniature painting, The Sword and the Flute (1959). In 1961 when the film screened in New York City, the Jaffreys encouraged Ismail Merchant to attend the screening, where he met Ivory for the first time. They subsequently met regularly at the Jaffreys' dinners and cemented their relationship into a lifetime partnership, both personal and professional. The Jaffreys planned to go back to India, start a traveling company and tour with it. They would often discuss this idea with James Ivory and started writing a script in his brownstone on East 64th Street.

In 1961 Saeed was forced to give up his job as Publicity Officer with the Government of India Tourist Office. Saeed went back to radio and joined The New York Times Company's radio station WQXR-FM where his first broadcast program was Reflections of India with Saeed Jaffrey. Saeed also took up acting on stage. The pay for such roles was generally $10/hour.

Within a year of Saeed's joining the Actor's Studio in 1958, he was able to get Madhur admitted there too. However, they left by 1962 because they felt the criticism offered by Lee Strasberg was too much for their sensitivity. Saeed appeared in a limited run off-Broadway production of Twelfth Night in the role of sea captain Antonio. He played the role of the Wigmaker in a three week run of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon at Fort Lee Playhouse in New Jersey. He appeared briefly in Rabindranath Tagore's The King of the Dark Chamber along with Madhur. From January to May of 1962 Saeed appeared at Broadway's Ambassador Theatre in a stage adaption of E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India in the role of Professor Godbole. In November 1962 Madhur and Saeed appeared in Rolf Forsberg's Off-Broadway production of A Tenth of an Inch Makes The Difference. Their performance was described by the New York Times drama critic, Milton Esterow, as "sensitive acting" that made up "the brightest part of the evening".

In 1963 Saeed enacted scenes from the works of Bertolt Brecht on a tour with Lotte Lenya that played in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit. In summer 1964, Saeed along with some actor friends, created a multi-racial touring company called Theater In The Street, giving free performances of Molière's The Doctor Despite Himself in Harlem, Brooklyn and Bedford–Stuyvesant.

By 1964, the Jaffreys' marriage had collapsed. Madhur arranged for their children to live with her parents and sister in Delhi while she went to Mexico for the formal divorce proceedings. The divorce was finalized in 1966.

Filmography

Jaffrey worked with actors including Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan. He starred in popular cinema directed by Satyajit Ray, James Ivory and Richard Attenborough.

His film credits include The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Shatranj Ke Khiladi (The Chess Players) (1977), Gandhi (1982), A Passage to India (1965 BBC version and 1984 film), The Far Pavilions (1984), The Razor's Edge (1984), and My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). He has also appeared in many Bollywood films in the 1980s and 1990s. For television he starred in Gangsters (1975–1978), The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Tandoori Nights (1985–1987) and Little Napoleons (1994). He also appeared as Ravi Desai on Coronation Street and in Minder as Mr Mukerjee in Series 1 episode The Bengal Tiger.

Achievements

• 1978: Won: Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award, Shatranj Ke Khiladi
• 1986: Nominated: Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award-Ram Teri Ganga Maili
• 1992: Nominated: Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award-Henna
• 1991: Best Actor: 12th annual Genie Awards, Masala
• 1988-89: TV series on Doordarshan: "Tandoori Nights."