The Legend-Amrish Puri

Amrish Lal Puri was an iconic Indian actor who appeared primarily in negative roles in Hindi movies. His most remembered roles are Mogambo in Mr India (1987) and Mola Ram in the Hollywood film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).

Amrish Puri played character roles and was well-known as a villain. Amrish's striking bass voice, the ability to extend his eyes widely out of their eyelids during climactic scenes and outsize acting style made him a convincing villain in even the most melodramatic movies.

Amrish Puri came to Mumbai, while his brother Madan Puri was already an established actor, known for playing villain roles.

Meanwhile Amrish Puri started performing at the Prithvi Theatre, in plays written by Satyadev Dubey, eventually became well-known as stage actor and won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1979. This theatre recognition soon led to work in television ads and eventually to films at the age of 40.

Amrish went on to work in Hindi, Kannada, Hollywood, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil films. Though he was successful in all of these industries, he is best known for his work in Bollywood cinema. He has appeared in over 400 movies. His dominating screen presence and booming voice made him stand out amongst a sea of actors.

Amrish Puri's last film was Kachchi sadak. The film was released a few days after his death. Amrish Puri died in Mumbai in 2005 at the age of 72. His autobiography The Act of Life was published in 2006 and is seen as the document of the cinema of his times.