Soumitra Chatterjee

Soumitra Chatterjee Biography

Soumitra Chatterjee, also known as Soumitra Chattopadhyay is an iconic film and stage actor of Bengal. He is also poet. He was frequently casted in Satyajit Ray films for which he won many awards and very often, his skills were compared with another star icon of Bengali Cinema - Uttam Kumar. He has received Bengal Film Journalist Association Awards in 1962, 1963 and 1965 for the movies - Tin Kanya, Abhijan and Charulatha respectively. Surprisingly all these movies were directed by Satyajit Ray. He has accumulated numerous other awards as well. He has also worked with critically well acclaimed directors like Mrinal Sen, Asit Sen and Tapan Sinha. Soumitra Chatterjee has received Dada Saheb Phalke Award in the year 2011, for his contributions to Bengal Cinema.

Soumitra was born in Krishnanagar in West Bengal in the year 1935. Later his family moved to Howrah and Calcutta. He completed his graduation and post graduation in Kolkata. He worked in All India Radio before pursuing a career in films. He was a budding poet also that time. Soumitra's film debut came in 1959 in Satyajit Ray's The World of Apu. Soumitra was a radio announcer that time and he did a minor role in this movie. Later he associated with Satyajit Ray in 14 movies and all are landmark movies of Bengali cinema. It was Satyajit Ray who exploited Soumitra’s acting talents and had experimented them by providing different types of roles throughout his career. Majority of those movies were released in 1960’s which gave numerous critical appreciations to Soumitra as well.

Other noted movies of Soumitra are Mrinal Sen's Akash Kusum and Tapan Sinha’s Jhinder Bandi in a villain role opposite Uttam Kumar. After Satyajit Ray, his talents were fully exposed by these two directors. Other noted movies are - Teen Bhubaner Pare, Shakha Proshakha, Ghare Baire, Sonar Kella and Joy Baba Felunath.

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Updated: November 19, 2013