It is said that the English actor never succeeds in Indian Cinema, Bollywood. Tom Alter was an exception. He was a native American, although he turned out to be a great and most successful English actor in the Indian cinema industry.
Early life f Tom Alter
Tom Alter was born as Thomas Beach Alter on 22 June 1950 in India. His parents were American Christian missionaries of English and Scottish ancestry. He studied in India and at Yale, US. Although he was born English, he was known for his impeccable Hindi. Often he was called as “Blue-eyed Saheb.”
Tom gained interest in Indian films after watching movie Aradhana. He acknowledged that in the 2009 interview.
“I still dream of being Rajesh Khanna. For me, in the early 1970s, he was the only hero — romantic to the core, not larger than life, so Indian and real — he was my hero, the reason I came into films and he still is.”
Bollywood & Television career
Tom Alter worked in more than 300 films with many appearances in TV serials and on stage. He was so successful that despite his English look, he easily fetched roles of the various genre throughout his career.
Tom is also known for some of the popular characters he played like, gangster Keshav Kalsi in the hit soap opera Junoon, and Musa in Parinda.
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Writing & other activity
He was a cricket lover and played cricket too. He was a part of the Bollywood cricket team ‘Match Cut Club’. It included Bollywood stars like Naseeruddin Shah, Satish Shah, Vishal Bhardwaj, Aamir Khan, and Nana Patekar. His love for cricket seen in his writing throughout his time.
He was also involved in book writing. He has some good books such as The Longest Race, Rerun at typical Indian Rialto, and The Best in the World to his name. He was also a sports journalist. He worked with major publications like Sportsweek, Outlook, Cricket talk, Sunday Observer and Debonair.
Tom Alter was the first to interview Sachin Tendulkar in the ’90s.
He was a true All Rounder.
Just like Tom, his son Jamie Alter is also an All Rounder!
He is an actor, Cricket writer, and freelance journalist.
Padma Shri Tom Alter
The government of India awarded Padma Shri in 2008 to Tom Alter for exceptional contribution to films.
He died at an age of 67 on the 29th of September 2017 due to skin cancer.
Tom Alter, our beloved “Angrez.”