Indian actor Irrfan Khan dies after battle with cancer
April 29, 2020
The Bollywood star was among the first Indian actors to make a consistent mark in Western cinema and had appeared in several Hollywood pictures, including "Life of Pi" and "Slumdog Millionaire."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/N. Armer
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Indian film star Irrfan Khan has died at the age of 53 after a prolonged battle with cancer, his publicist said on Wednesday.
"Irrfan was a strong soul, someone who fought till the very end and always inspired everyone who came close to him," his publicist said in a statement.
Khan's international movie career included Hollywood hits such as Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi and The Amazing Spider-Man.
Alongside Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth and Om Puri, Khan was among the first line of Indian actors to leave a mark in Hollywood and Anglo-American cinema.
Irrfan Khan, here at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018, also enjoyed a career outside IndiaImage: Getty Images/T. Boddi
"I never knew I would be so sad — I felt a punch in my heart," Adil Hussain, who was in Life of Pi with Khan, told DW. "He was able to express himself with the utmost vulnerability and where he embodied the character in a wholesome way to give access to the audience to look at his soul."
Long illness
The actor, who was diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumor in 2018, was admitted to Mumbai's Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital earlier this week with a colon infection.
After revealing he had been diagnosed with the tumor in 2018, Khan received extensive treatment and recovered well enough to shoot Angrezi Medium, the film which would turn out to be his last, and whose release this March was cut short because of the coronavirus pandemic, The Guardian reported.
Breaking into mainstream cinema
He was born Saahabzaade Irfan Ali Khan in Jaipur, the son of a tire seller, and went to drama school after failing as a cricketer.
The now globally acclaimed Hollywood and Bollywood actor struggled to make headway in the film industry in his early days, only finding regular work in small TV soap operas.
Khan's breakthrough role came with the feature debut of then-unknown British director Asif Kapadia, whose 2002 low-budget film The Warrior was shot in India.
The Warrior went on to win the BAFTA award for best British film and was selected for the prestigious San Sebastian film festival.
Khan subsequently broke into mainstream films and alongside Bollywood, maintained a career in British and Hollywood cinema.
"He will be remembered as one of the finest actors in India, for sure, and for his contribution to world cinema, as well," said Adil Hussain. "He will remain as one of the most revered actors, most respected actors. He's going to be an inspiration to new kind of actors in India to portray roles with a lot of realism, which generally wasn't the case in the so-called Bollywood film industry."
10 influential Indian artists
As the Beethovenfest Bonn welcomes musicians from India for its Campus Project 2018, DW revisits some of the country's most important and popular contemporary stars.
Image: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images
Ravi Shankar
In the 1950s, Ravi Shankar (1920-2012) was one of the first to popularize Indian music in the West. The meditative sound and the soaring drive of the ragas of this sitar virtuoso inspired and influenced different musicians, from violinist Yehudi Menuhin to Beatle George Harrison (photo).
Image: AP
Zubin Mehta
The star conductor was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1936 and went to Vienna to study at the age of 18. Zubin Mehta has celebrated a successful career in Europe, the US and Israel, all while remaining connected to his homeland. For instance, he has created a foundation to support the popularization of classical western music in India.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Jordan
Yash Chopra
The Hindi film industry would never have become such an internationally successful phenomenon without the late filmmaker and producer Yash Chopra (1932-2012). Known as the "King of Romance" of Indian cinema, Chopra was behind some of the cult classics that established the Bollywood brand outside of India.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/C. Court
Shah Rukh Khan
And here's the "King of Bollywood": Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, also known as SRK, is the most successful actor in India — he has more fans worldwide than Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise combined. His roles in hit melodramatic films have established him as the quintessential "romantic hero," with his humor and charisma definitely contributing to his charm.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Verma
Raj Kapoor
Kapoor (1924-1988) was one of the most influential actors and filmmakers in the history of cinema. The "greatest showman of Hindi cinema" conquered the hearts of the Indian people and critics alike in the 1950s. Instead of portraying heroic figures, he was one of the first to embody "the ordinary man" with likable weaknesses. He has been immortalized in wax at Madame Tussaud's Museum in India.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. Qadri
Subodh Gupta
Contemporary art "made in India" has been booming for decades, and one of the scene's most successful stars is Subodh Gupta. His works fetch record prices on the art market. Bihar, the state where Gupta was born, is one of the poorest in India. He uses ordinary items in his work that reflect his own childhood as well as India's 20th-century transformation.
Image: Imago/H. Förster
Kajol
Award-winning film actress Kajol Devgan is one of the most famous and popular stars in Bollywood. The Indian beauty icon is also a social activist and the mother of two children.
Image: Imago/ZUMA Press/A. Khan
Arundhati Roy
The Indian author was among Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. After winning the Man Booker Prize in 1997 with her novel "The God of Small Things," she became a prominent anti-globalization activist.
Image: picture-alliance/ANSA/G. Onorati
A.R. Rahman
The composer's film scores combine Indian classical music with electronic beats. A.R. Rahman's soundtrack for Danny Boyle's 2008 film "Slumdog Millionaire" won a Golden Globe and two Academy Awards — a first for an Asian. He was also included on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people in 2009.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Samad
Balkrishna Doshi
In 2018 the 90-year-old architect was honored with the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the world's top award in the field. The jury noted his "deep sense of responsibility and a desire to contribute to his country and its people through high quality, authentic architecture." The Aranya Low Cost Housing, one of his most noteworthy designs, offers a solution to the housing shortage in the Indore state.
