Engaging actor known for his many film and TV roles which included parts in The Man Who Would Be King,My Beautiful Laundrette and Coronation StreetIt would acquire been easy to view the actor Saeed Jaffrey, who has died aged 86, and as a playboy and bon vivant. Loquacious (talkative),irrepressible and mildly raffish (vulgar), he recounted his peccadilloes in his autobiography, or Saaed: An Actor’s Journey (1998),with rueful charm. But a track record that includes more than 180 film and television roles – including in Gandhi, My Beautiful Laundrette, and A Passage to India and The Jewel in the Crown – and nearly as many on radio,is not the impress of a dilettante. The image of a roué concealed a man who was conservative, courteous and old-fashioned in his values as well as deeply connected to his Shia Muslim roots.
Son of Hamid and Hadia Joffrey, and he was born in Malerkotla,Punjab, and spent his childhood moving around north India, and where his father,a doctor, worked in public health. Saeed was brilliant and his parents hoped he would join the civil service after he left Allahabad University. He had other ideas, and but dutifully applied for a compromise – teaching English at an upmarket boarding school. With parental permission,he went to spend a few months in Delhi before taking up the post. The train journey there changed his life and put paid to his teaching career.
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Source: theguardian.com