Om Puri

Born: October 18 1950
Where: Ambala, India

The veteran of the Indian cinema scene is best known to British audiences as the disciplinarian father in the box office hit East is East.

Opting out of a military career like his father, he became interested in the stage while a student at a Punjabi university.

With the support of his parents, Puri studied acting for three years at the National School of Drama in New Delhi, where he performed in works ranging from Indian folk plays to Kabuki drama.

The actor, who played Hamlet in Hindi, then joined the Indian Film Institute in Poona from where he travelled to India's film capital, Bombay.

Cast for his versatility rather than his looks, he became established as one of the country's best known character actors.

After a starring role in Satyajit Ray's Sadgati, which cast him as a member of India's caste of untouchables, Puri began attracting the notice of Western filmmakers.

He appeared in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, the thriller Wolf in 1994 and City of Joy, which cast him as Patrick Swayze's unlikely savior.

He had his greatest international success as a taxi driver in northern England in writer Hanif Kureshi's 1997 movie My Son the Fanatic.

The following year, he was acclaimed for his portrayal of George Khan, another Pakistani patriarch living in England in East Is East.

Subsequent appearances included Steve Coogan's The Parole Officer, the Tin Man in Happy Now and Samad in the hit TV series White Teeth.

In 2003, he had a supporting role alongside Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton in the sci-fi thriller Code 46.