(18 March 1938 - 4 December 2017)
The Indian actor-producer-director Shashi Kapoor has died, aged 79, from liver cirrhosis. He was one of the sub-continent’s busiest and most famous actors in both Indian and other films. Kapoor made over 160 movies, often playing the handsome hero, although most of his Hindi films never reached the UK. He did, however, appear in twelve films in English. His career began in the 1940s, when he travelled around India with a touring theatre company while also appearing in films. In 1956, at the age of 18, he joined the British actor Geoffrey Kendal’s Shakespeare company and fell in love with one of Kendal’s daughters, Jennifer, whom he subsequently married and with whom he fathered three children. The other daughter, Felicity, was also part of her father’s touring troupe. James Ivory directed Kapoor in The Householder (1963), based on Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s novel. The film was released internationally and then in 1965 Ivory and Jhabvala wrote Shakespeare Wallah, based on the Kendals’ touring company in which Geoffrey, Jennifer, Felicity and Kapoor played fictitious versions of themselves. Among Kapoor’s other English-speaking films were Pretty Polly (1967), from a story by Noël Coward, while Ivory directed Kapoor in Bombay Talkie (1970) with Jennifer Kendal, Heat and Dust (1983) and The Deceivers (1988). Ivory’s partner, Ismail Merchant, made In Custody with Kapoor, from the novel by Anita Desai. Other films featuring the actor include Conrad Rooks’ Siddhartha, Stephen Frears’ Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (written by Hanif Kureishi), Jinnah with Christopher Lee, and Tony Gerber’s Side Streets. Dirty British Boys was Kapoor’s last film before he retired in 1999.
MICHAEL DARVELL
