Bibhu Bhattacharya

Bibhu Bhattacharya (17 September 1944 – 23 September 2011) was an Indian actor who primarily appeared in Bengali TV and films. He was born in Jharia, Bihar, British India (now Jharia, Jharkhand, India). He gained prominence and became a household name only in 1998 as Jatayu (Lalmohan Ganguly) in Sandip Ray’s Feluda, based on stories by his late father, maestro Satyajit Ray. In 2011, he died of Cardiac arrest in Howrah, West Bengal.

Bibhu Bhattacharya never attended any school. He was acting in studios, when other boys of his age were studying. At the age of four-and-a-half he started acting in a film called Maryada, starring Uttam Kumar.

He was called Master Bibhu, one of the most prominent child actors in Bengali films and very popular with actors like Jahar Ganguly and Chhabi Biswas. He played the title role in the movie Prahlad (1952) and did movies like Bindur Chhele (1952), Dhruba (1953), Rani Rashmoni (1955) and Dui Bon (1955). After he grew up and became a teenager, he could no longer be a child actor and offers began to dry up. His last film as a child actor was Sagar Sangame (1959). Then, he didn’t get another film for almost 38 years. In between, he kept himself busy with theater and TV serials.

It was only in 1998 that he got the dream role of Jatayu. His first film as Jatayu was Jahangirer Shornomudra (1999) and he also acted as Jatayu in Bombaiyer Bombete (2003), Kailashey Kelenkari (2007), Tintorettor Jishu (2007), Gorosthaney Sabdhan (2010) and Royal Bengal Rahasya (2011). He was legendary in his performance and managed to capture in essence the spirit of the character so well that even Sandip Ray, the director, found him perfect as a replacement. He had completed dubbing for the Feluda film Royal Bengal Rahasya the day before he died. Initially, it was difficult to replace the legendary actor, Santosh Dutta as Jatayu, but he became popular with time.