Amrish Puri was born on June 22nd, 1932 in Nawanshahr, Punjab to Lala Nihal Chand and Ved Kaur. He had four siblings, elder brothers Chaman Puri and Madan Puri (both of them were actors too), younger brother Harish Puri and elder sister Chandrakanta. He graduated from BM College, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.
Amrish Puri was an iconic Indian character actor and was a well known villain in Bollywood. He was known for his strong bass voice and the ability to look ferocious made him one of the most iconic villains of all time.
At the time, Amrish Puri came to Mumbai to become a Bollywood hero, his brother Madan Puri was already an established actor. Amrish Puri failed his initial screen tests and had to work with LIC.
In the meantime, he started to work at Prithvi Theatre and performed in plays written by Satyadev Dubey. He became a well known stage actor and that recognition got him work in TV ads and in films at the age of 40.
In 1970, he debuted in his first film Prem Pujari, followed by many supporting roles in films like Nishant, Manthan and Bhumika. In 1984, he appeared in Govind Nihalani’s film “Party”. He grabbed the maximum attention for his work in Shekhar Kapur’s film “Mr. India” in 1987. He played the role of Mogambo, who is considered as one of the most evil roles ever played in Bollywood history.
During the 1980s, he played numerous villainous roles. Although in 1990s, he started playing some notable positive characters; one of the most remembered role among those was his role as Baldev Singh in one of the biggest Bollywood blockbuster “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” in 1995.
Even though he was best known for portraying villainous character, he played many good characters at times, some of his notable “good guy” roles are in “Pardes”, “Chori Chori Chupke Chupke”, Malayalam film, “Vijeta”, and he worked in English, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu films in his 35 years old career. He also worked with Steven Spielberg and played the role of the antagonist in “Indiana Jones and the temple of doom.”
On January 2005, he died in Mumbai after a brain hemorrhage at the age of 72. His autobiography named “The Act of Life” was published in 2006.