Google celebrated the “life and legacy” of renowned Bollywood actor Amrish Puri on his 87th birth anniversary with a doodle. Puri, who died in 2005, had portrayed some of the most memorable villainous characters in Indian cinema.
Puri appeared in over 200 films in more than a dozen languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, and English. His most memorable performance came at the age of 55 when he played Mogambo in the 1987 movie Mr. India. “Puri’s deep-voiced delivery of the dastardly line ‘Mogambo khush hua’ (‘Mogambo is pleased’) would become his signature,” Google said in a note.
Puri made his Bollywood debut in 1971 in Reshma Aur Shera and entered Hollywood as Khan, a supporting role in the Oscar-winning movie Gandhi. He was cast as Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom after initially turning down Hollywood director Steven Spielberg’s offer. “Amrish is my favorite villain,” Spielberg had said. “The best the world has ever produced and ever will!”
Pune-based artist Debangshu Moulik said the doodle he created was inspired by typography and colours in old hand-painted Bollywood movie posters and on the streets of India. Moulik said he has been watching Puri’s performances since he was a kid.
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