New Delhi: Bengal’s tallest Superstar Soumitra Chatterjee passes away on Sunday due to illness, weeks after he was admitted to hospital with Covid-19. He was 85.Satyajit Ray’s great third trilogy Apur Sansar; Soumitra Chatterjee started his career at the age of 23 in the character Apu or Apurba Kumar Roy. He breathed life into Ray’s most powerful and complex characters and Ray moulded him into what he believed was one of the world’s finest actors. Soumitra Chatterjee debuted as Apu in 1959 in Apur Sansar.

When the legendary Satyajit Ray met the gangly young actor in 1958 for a role in his film, he exclaimed “Oh dear, you have turned out to be much too tall.” Ray was looking for someone to play a grown up Apu – the little boy of his classic film Pather Panchali. Eventually, the height – 5 feet 11 and half inches – did not get in the way. Soumitra Chatterjee acted in 14 films which were directed by Satyajit Ray from Charulata Abhijan and Aranyer Din Ratri to Devi, Ganashatru and Gharey Baire.

Other Bengal greats – Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha, Ajoy Kar – signed him up again and again too. Even in his 80s, the thespian was the star of the Bengali silver screen. Bengal’s filmmakers wrote scripts centered around a character that only Soumitra Chatterjee could play. Till the end, he was big at the box office with Bela Sheshe, Mayurakshi, Sanjhbati — all hit films.

He was conferred with the highest civilian award Padma Bhushan in 2004; he also conferred the film highest award Dada Saheb Phalke in 2012. He rejected the Padma Shri twice before that because, it is said, he felt they came too late and not for his best work. In 2018, France bestowed upon him the Legion of Honour. Soumitra Chatterjee did not just act in films. He straddled the theatre, acting on stage, directing and writing plays, essays, and poetry. He painted. He raised the recitation of poetry to a fine art that entranced Bengal for years, his most beloved – the poems of Rabindranath Tagore.