Saeed Jaffrey Net Worth

Saeed Jaffrey was a renowned actor born in Maler Kotla, Punjab, India on January 8, 1929. He attended University of Allahabad and the Staff Training Institute of All India Radio, and later the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and the Catholic University in America. He founded his own English theatre company called the Unity Theatre in New Delhi and toured the United States doing Shakespearean plays in 1957. He was the first Indian Actor to do so. He was noted for his acting in the play "Nights" and his role as the "Nawab" in Granada Television's adaptation of "The Jewel in the Crown". He made numerous stage appearances and participated in a number of tours, and started his U.S. television career in the 1960s. He was the director of publicity and advertising for the Government of India in their Tourist Office in the U.S. from 1958 to 1960. His performance in the BBC classic _Gangsters (1975) (TV)_, as "Rafiq" earned him countrywide recognition in the United Kingdom. He began his feature film career acting in the movie The Guru (1969), and since then has made numerous film appearances along with Hollywood stars. He is a member of the Actors' Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. He is the first Asian to have received British and Canadian Academy Award nominations for acting, and is the first ever to be awarded the Order of the British Empire for his services to drama.
Saeed Jaffrey is a member of Actor

Age, Biography and Wiki

Who is it? Actor, Miscellaneous Crew
Birth Day January 08, 1929
Birth Place  Malerkotla, Punjab, British India, American
Age 91 YEARS OLD
Died On 15 November 2015(2015-11-15) (aged 86)\nLondon, England
Birth Sign Aquarius
Education Minto Circle, Aligarh (1938–41) Wynberg Allen School, Mussoorie (1941–43) St. George's College, Mussoorie (1943–45) Allahabad University (1945–48) BA English Literature Allahabad University (1948–50) MA Medieval Indian History The Catholic University of America (1956–57) MA Fine Arts, Drama
Occupation Actor
Years active 1961–2014
Spouse(s) Madhur Bahadur (m. 1958–1966) Jennifer Sorrell (m. 1980–2015)
Children Zia Jaffrey (b. 1959) Meera Jaffrey (b. 1960) Sakina Jaffrey (b. 1962)

💰 Net worth

Saeed Jaffrey was a highly accomplished actor and miscellaneous crew member, known for his contributions to the American entertainment industry. His net worth is estimated to be between $100,000 and $1 million in 2024. Throughout his career, Jaffrey delivered exceptional performances, captivating audiences with his talent and versatility. He appeared in numerous films and television shows, leaving a lasting impression on the industry. Jaffrey's contribution to American entertainment has undoubtedly earned him financial success, making him a respected and influential figure in the industry.

Some Saeed Jaffrey images

Biography/Timeline

1929

Saeed Jaffrey was born on 8 January 1929 to a Punjabi Muslim family in Malerkotla, Punjab region. At that time, his maternal grandfather, Khan Bahadur Fazle Imam, was the Dewan or Prime Minister of the princely state of Malerkotla. His father, Dr Hamid Hussain Jaffrey, was a physician and a civil servant with the Health Services department of the United Provinces of British India. Jaffrey and his family moved from one medical posting to another within the United Provinces, living in cities like Muzaffarnagar, Lucknow, Mirzapur, Kanpur, Aligarh, Mussoorie, Gorakhpur and Jhansi.

1938

In 1938, Jaffrey joined Minto Circle School at Aligarh Muslim University where he developed his talent for mimicry. In 1939 he played the role of Dara Shikoh in a school play about Aurangzeb, the last great Mughal Emperor. At Aligarh, Jaffrey also mastered the Urdu language and attended riding school. At the local cinemas in Aligarh, he saw many Bollywood movies and became a fan of Motilal, Prithviraj Kapoor, Noor Mohammed Charlie, Fearless Nadia, Kanan Bala and Durga Khote.

1941

In 1941 at Mussoorie, Jaffrey attended Wynberg Allen School, a Church of England public school where he picked up British-accented English. He played the role of the Cockney cook, Mason, in the annual school play, R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End. After completing his Senior Cambridge there, Jaffrey attended St. George's College, Mussoorie, an all-boys' Roman Catholic school run by Brothers of Saint Patrick. He played the role of Kate Hardcastle in the annual school play, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer. At Mussoorie, Saeed and his brother Waheed would often sneak out at night to watch British and American films at the local theatres.

1947

In 1945, Jaffrey gained admission to Allahabad University where he completed his B.A. degree in 1948 and M.A. degree in 1950. At Allahabad, Saeed learned about Hindu religion and mythology for the first time. While visiting his father in Gorakhpur in the winter of 1945, Saeed discovered the BBC World Service on the shortwave radio. When India gained independence from Britain on 15 August 1947 Jaffrey heard Jawaharlal Nehru's inaugural speech on All India Radio as the Prime Minister of India, titled Tryst with Destiny. The partition of India caused all of Saeed's relatives in New Delhi and Bannoor, Punjab to flee to Pakistan.

1951

Along with Frank Thakurdas and 'Benji' Benegal, Jaffrey set up the Unity Theatre, an English language repertory company at New Delhi in 1951. The first production was of Jean Cocteau's play The Eagle Has Two Heads, with Madhur Bahadur playing the role of the Queen's Reader opposite Saeed as Azrael. Unity Theatre subsequently staged J. B. Priestley's Dangerous Corner, Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, Molière's The Bourgeois Gentleman, Christopher Fry's The Firstborn and T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party .

1953

After graduation from Miranda House in 1953, Bahadur joined All India Radio. She worked as a disc jockey at night. Jaffrey and Bahadur, having fallen "madly in love", dated at Gaylord, a restaurant in Connaught Place. At Unity Theatre, Bahadur and Jaffrey acted together in Christopher Fry's A Phoenix Too Frequent, followed by Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Tennessee Williams' Auto-da-Fé, and william Shakespeare's Othello.

1955

In early 1955, Bahadur left to study drama formally at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), a drama school in the UK. In late 1955, Jaffrey won a Fulbright scholarship to study drama in America the following year. In spring 1956, he approached Bahadur's parents in Delhi for her hand in marriage but they refused because they felt that his financial prospects as an actor did not appear sound. In summer 1956, Jaffrey resigned from his position as Radio Director at All India Radio. He flew to London on his way to America and proposed to Bahadur. She refused but gave him a tour of RADA where she pointed out a young Peter O'Toole and other English stage actors who would later achieve prominence. A few days later, Jaffrey boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth to sail across the Atlantic Ocean from Southampton to New York City.

1957

In September 1957, Bahadur and Jaffrey returned to Washington, D.C. where Jaffrey rehearsed for the 1957 – 58 season with the National Players, a professional touring company that performed classical plays all over America. He was the first Indian to take Shakespearean plays on a tour of the United States. He was cast in the role of Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. He played Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew. Midway through the tour, Jaffrey returned to Washington DC from Miami to marry Bahadur in a modest civil ceremony. The next day, they travelled to New York City where Bahadur was taken on as a tour guide at the United Nations while Jaffrey undertook public relations work for the Government of India Tourist Office. They lived on West 27th Street, between Sixth and Broadway. Between 1959 and 1962 Bahadur and Jaffrey had three daughters, Meera, Zia and Sakina.

1958

Jaffrey had three daughters from his 1958-1964 marriage to Madhur Jaffrey: Zia, Meera and Sakina. Sakina Jaffrey is also an Actress and acted alongside her father in the Canadian film Masala (1991).

1961

In 1961 Jaffrey was forced to give up his job as Publicity Officer with the Government of India Tourist Office. He went back to radio and joined The New York Times Company's radio station WQXR-FM where his first broadcast program was Reflections of India with Saeed Jaffrey. Saeed also took up acting on stage. The pay for such roles was generally $10/hour.

1963

In 1963, Jaffrey toured with Lotte Lenya and the American National Theater and Academy to perform Brecht on Brecht, a revue which was seen in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit. In summer 1964, Jaffrey along with some actor friends, created a multi-racial touring company called Theater In The Street, giving free performances of Molière's The Doctor Despite Himself in Harlem, Brooklyn and Bedford–Stuyvesant.

1964

By 1964, the Jaffreys' marriage had collapsed. Madhur arranged for their children to live with her parents and sister in Delhi while she went to Mexico for the formal divorce proceedings. The divorce was finalized in 1966.

1965

In 1965 Jaffrey was offered the role of the Hindu God Brahma in Kindly Monkeys at the Arts Theatre, London. Favourable reviews of the play brought an offer from the BBC World Service to write, act and narrate scripts in Urdu and Hindi. Jaffrey played the small part of barrister Hamidullah in the BBC Television adaptation of A Passage to India. In order to pay the rent on his one bedroom flat in Chelsea, Jaffrey took a job as an assistant cashier at Liberty's, a department store selling luxury goods.

1966

In early 1966, Jaffrey returned to New York City to play the haiku-karate expert Korean police chief Kim Bong Choy in Nathan Weinstein, Mystic, Connecticut that opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. In summer that year he played a role in The Coffee Lover, a comedy starring Alexis Smith that toured Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine. Later that year, he recorded a narration of the Kama Sutra titled The Art of Love for Vanguard Records. It was listed by Time magazine in February 1967 as "one of the five best spoken word records ever made".

1969

Back in London, Jaffrey was given the opportunity to shoot in India for the next Merchant Ivory film, The Guru (1969). He flew to Bombay in December 1967 and met his daughters after a gap of three years. He returned to London in the summer of 1968. He became the first Indian in a starring role in London's West End theatre when he played a Pakistani Photographer in On A Foggy Day.

1975

His film credits include The Wilby Conspiracy (1975), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Shatranj Ke Khiladi (The Chess Players) (1977), Sphinx (1981), Gandhi (1982), A Passage to India (1965 BBC version and 1984 film), The Far Pavilions (1984), The Razor's Edge (1984), and My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). He has also appeared in many Bollywood films in the 1980s and 1990s. For television he starred in Gangsters (1975–78), The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Tandoori Nights (1985–87) and Little Napoleons (1994). He also appeared as Ravi Desai on Coronation Street and in Minder as Mr Mukerjee in Series 1 episode The Bengal Tiger.

1977

He broke into Bollywood with Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977) for which he won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award in 1978. His cameo role as the paanwala Lallan Miyan in Chashme Buddoor (1981) won him popularity with Indian audiences. He became a household name in India with his roles in Raj Kapoor's Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) and Henna (1991), both of which won him nominations for the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award.

1980

In 1980 Jaffrey married Jennifer Sorrell, an agent and freelance casting Director. They remained married until his death in 2015.

1995

He was the first Asian to receive British and Canadian film award nominations. In 1995 he was awarded an OBE in recognition of his services to drama, the first Asian to receive this honour. His memoirs, Saeed: An Actor's Journey, were published in 1998.

1998

In 1998 Saeed wrote an autobiography, Saeed: An Actor's Journey in 1998.

2015

Jaffrey died at a hospital in London on 15 November 2015, after collapsing from a brain haemorrhage at his home. He was posthumously conferred with Padma Shri award in January 2016.