Soumitra Chatterjee

Soumitra Chatterjee সৌমিত্র চট্টোপাধ্যায়
Soumitra Chatterjee inaugurating a Puja at Behala in 2013
Born	(1935-01-19) 19 January 1935 (age 82) Krishnanagar, Bengal Presidency, British India (now in West Bengal, India)
Occupation	Actor, Recitator, Poet, Thespian
Years active	1959 – present
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)

Soumitra Chatterjee or Soumitra Chattopadhyay (Shoumitro Chôttopaddhae; born 19 January 1935) is an Indian Bengali film and stage actor and poet. He is best known for his collaborations with Oscar-winning film director Satyajit Ray,with whom he worked in fourteen films, and his constant comparison with the Bengali cinema screen idol Uttam Kumar, his contemporary leading man of the 1960s and 1970s. Soumitra Chatterjee is also the first Indian film personality to be conferred with the Commandeur de l’ Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's highest award for artists. He is also the winner of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award which is India's highest award for cinema.

Starting with his debut film, Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959), the third part of Apu Trilogy, he went on to work in several notable films with Ray, including Abhijan (The Expedition, 1962), Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964), Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest, 1969); Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder, 1973); Sonar Kella (The Fortress, 1974) as Feluda and Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God, 1978) as Feluda, Ghare Baire (The Home and The World, 1984) and Ganashatru (Enemy of the People, 1989). Meanwhile, he also worked with other noted directors of Bengali cinema, with Mrinal Sen in Akash Kusum (Up in the Clouds, 1965), Tapan Sinha in Kshudhita Pashan (Hungry Stones, 1960), Jhinder Bandi (1961), Asit Sen in Swaralipi (1961), Ajoy Kar in Saat Pake Bandha (1963), Parineeta (1969), and Tarun Mazumdar in Sansar Simante (1975) and Ganadevata (1978). He acted more than 210 films in his career till 2016.