RIP Saeed Jaffrey: a jewel of international cinema

Saeed Jaffrey was a character actor of enormous accomplishment, urbane wit and avuncular charm, deeply honoured in UK theatrical circles for his groundbreaking Shakespearian tours of India.

His very unparochial career let him straddle two different kinds of cinema - Hindi and English language - and also subsets within these: auteur cinema and Bollywood, British and Hollywood, as well as TV both in high-gloss drama and soapy form. To all he brought intelligence, a lifetime's accumulation of technique and style, and a seductive, resonant voice.

Saeed Jaffrey, Bollywood and British screen legend, dies aged 86

Death of veteran actor who starred in Gandhi and A Passage to India as well as The Chess Players, Dil and Coronation Street was announced on Sunday

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He was an invaluable presence in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) and David Lean's A Passage to India (1984). On British TV, he starred in dramas ranging from The Jewel in the Crown to Coronation Street. In fact, from a British perspective, his career was part of the whole colonial and post-colonial story in screen culture.

Among his many screen credits in Indian cinema was Indra Kumar's Dil (1990), a romantic comedy of errors in which he played the frowning father of a beautiful young woman involved in a romantic imbroglio: a perfect role for Jaffrey, with his comic sense and Shakespearian training.

I first became aware of Jaffrey for his game supporting role in John Huston's Kipling yarn The Man Who Would Be King (1975) as the loyal and feisty Gurkha Billy Fish, who acts as translator and fixer for the two soldier-of-fortune chancers played by Sean Connery and Michael Caine. It was a bit of a stereotypical role, but Jaffrey's natural sympathy and ease elevated it.

But he is probably most famous for a key role in Satyajit Ray's masterly drama Shatranj Ke Khilari, or The Chess Players (1977): a delicate, humorous, humane and mysterious Raj drama. Jaffrey embodies all these qualities. He plays Mir Roshan Ali, one of two Indian noblemen in Lucknow in 1856 who are utterly obsessed with the game of chess - a refined but apparently decadent pastime which symbolises their neglect of their nation's defences, allowing the British to take over. The British are represented by the puce-faced General Outram, played by Richard Attenborough.

As the East India Company moves in on their territory, Ali and his friend Mirza Sajjad Ali effectively abandon Lucknow for a peaceful village where they can play. Is Jaffrey's character simply naive and absurd? Ray's film and Jaffrey's performance convey something more elusive and complex. It could be that his monkish devotion to the transcendental difficulties of chess is emblematic of an attitude that goes beyond military aggression and martial patriotic pride; a serio-comic Zen indifference, which is more cultured and of a higher order of being than the invader. A butterfly that may yet remain unbroken by the wheel.

As an actor of seductive charm, Jaffrey was ideal casting here. He was a jewel of international cinema.

He was such a versatile, polished actor with his perfect pronunciation of Hindi, Urdu and English words!

Have watched countless movies of his down the decades, still remember his roles in RTGM, Ray's Shatranj Ke Khiladi, Gandhi, Dil and Khoon Bhari Maang.

He was a great actor