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Puri, 66, suffered cardiac arrest, his friend and actor
Anupam Kher told Reuters.
Puri cut his teeth in the 1980s with alternative art cinema that
found a niche audience in India, playing several memorable
characters that depicted the angst of the times.
He also worked in several Hollywood and British films, including
"The Reluctant Fundamentalist", "East is East", and most
recently in "The Hundred-Foot Journey", opposite Britain's Helen
Mirren.
"He showed that you didn't have to be 'fair' and 'good-looking'
to be a protagonist," Saeed Akhtar Mirza, who directed Puri in
one of his earliest films, "Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai"
(Why does Albert Pinto get Angry?), told Reuters.
"It was just the force of his personality and his performance."
Several Bollywood stars, fans and Prime Minister Narendra Modi
took to Twitter to pay their respects.
"Who dare say Om Puri is no more? He lives through his work,"
actor Kamal Hassan tweeted.
An alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India and
later, the National School of Drama, the actor’s work in Govind
Nihalani's "Ardh Satya" (Half-Truth) and later "Aakrosh" (Rage)
won him several accolades.
Along with Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil, Puri
was seen as one of the stars of the alternative cinema movement
that contrasted sharply with Bollywood's often crass content.
His distinctive baritone, and ability to switch seamlessly
between art house, Bollywood, Hollywood and British film, made
him an international star, one of the few Indian actors to cross
over to the West before the likes Irrfan Khan and Priyanka
Chopra made the jump.
(Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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