Ranjit Chowdhry is an actor, director, writer and well known face in Bollywood/Hollywood industry. He is from Indian descent and worked in many Hindi movies and TV serials before going to Hollywood. His biological father was a Gurjar by caste and married to a Jewish descent theatre artist Pearl Padamsee.
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He has been credited by varied name spellings in many of his work. He debuted in 1979 with Basu Chatterjee’s
Khatta Meetha
, a light hearted family drama Hindi film. Khatta Meetha was followed by another Basu Chatterjee’s flick
Baaton Baaton Mein
(1979). His many of the characters are comic which were continued in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Khoobsurat (1980).
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In 1980 he went to the USA and joined theatre there. After some remarkable performance s in many of his plays, he was seen in a US based TV series
The Office
where he played the character of Vikram, a telemarketer to work with The Michael Scott Paper Company. Also, he has given the remarkable performance as Dr. Gupta in Last Holiday (2006).
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In parallel to Hollywood, he continued working with Bollywood industry and worked in
Deepa Mehta
’s Bollywood/Hollywood as Rocky which bagged him 23rd Genie Award for best supporting actor.
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For theatre, he wrote screenplay and acted in Deepa Mehta directed Sam & Me which won an Honorable Mention at Cannes (1991).
Ranjit Chowdhry, who had been living in New York City, visited India in 2020. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Indian government announced a lockdown and he had to continue his stay in India. On 14th April, he developed an ulcer in the intestine. Following this, he was immediately admitted to the hospital. But, the surgery didn’t help him to get out of the health issue. He breathed his last on 15th April 2020.Â