Tom Alter

Tom Alter (full name Thomas Beach Alter) was an acclaimed Indian actor of American descent, known for his extensive work in Hindi cinema, Indian theater, and television.

He was born on June 22, 1950, in Landour, near Mussoorie in Uttar Pradesh (now Uttarakhand), India. His grandparents were American Presbyterian missionaries who first came to India from Ohio in 1910, and both his father and grandfather continued the missionary work in India.

Alter grew up in the north Indian towns of Rajpur and Mussoorie, where he studied Hindi and Urdu from childhood at the Woodstock School from grade 1 through 12, graduating in 1968. As a child, he became so proficient in Hindi that he was affectionately called "the blue-eyed sahib with the impeccable Hindi".

Full Name	Tom Alter
Occupation	Actor
Date of Birth	22-June-1950 (76 years)
Birth Location	Landour, Uttarakhand
Gender	Male

After graduation, he worked as a sports teacher at St. Thomas School in Jagadhri, Haryana, and later returned to Woodstock School as staff for about two years.

His acting career began in the early 1970s after he watched the classic Hindi film "Aaradhna" (also spelled "Aradhana"), which inspired him to pursue cinema. He enrolled in the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), where he studied alongside future stalwarts like Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, earning a gold medal in acting. His first film was "Charas" in 1976, starring Dharmendra.

He appeared in more than 300 films over four decades, working with legendary filmmakers including Satyajit Ray, V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Manmohan Desai, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Manoj Kumar, and Ismail Merchant. He was best known for his roles in films such as "Shatranj Ke Khiladi," "Kranti," "Sardar," "Junoon," "Veer-Zaara," "Bheja Fry," and "Family Comes First". Despite his mastery of Hindi, he was often typecast as an English-speaking foreigner in Bollywood movies.

Beyond acting, he was a accomplished writer who published books including "The Longest Race," "Rerun at Rialto," and "The Best in the World". He was also a passionate cricket enthusiast who wrote extensively for publications like Sportsweek, Outlook, Cricket Talk, Sunday Observer, and Debonair. In 2008, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Shri Award for his contribution to the fields of arts and cinema.

Tom Alter passed away on September 29, 2017, at his home in Mumbai, Maharashtra, after a long battle with Stage IV skin cancer that he was diagnosed with earlier in 2017. He was 67 years old at the time of his death. He is survived by his wife Carol Evans Alter, son Jamie Alter, and daughter Afshaan. His last movie, "Hamari Paltan," was released posthumously in 2018.