Santosh Dutta

Who was Santosh Dutta?

Santosh Dutta was a Bengali actor, best known for immortalizing the character of Jatayu in Satyajit Ray's Feluda movies viz. Sonar Kella and Joi Baba Felunath. A lawyer by profession, Dutta will be remembered as one of the greatest comedians Bengali films ever had. Essentially a comedian, he elevated comedy acting to the levels of character roles. Satyajit Ray gave him the first break with a small role in his immortal film Paras Pathar. After Sonar Kella, he became so associated with the role of "Jatayu" that Satyajit Ray later reframed the appearance of Jatayu and started making the sketches of Jatayu resembling Dutta in Feluda novels. After the death of this actor, Ray once remarked that there will be no further movies in the Feluda series as Jatayu cannot be thought of without Santosh Dutta. Though the role of Jatayu was later played by artistes like Anoop Kumar, Rabi Ghosh and Bibhu Bhattacharya, these actors agreed that it was impossible to play the character without the influence of Santosh Dutta in mind.

Apart from playing Jatayu, Dutta played crucial roles in Satyajit Ray's masterpieces for children like Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and Hirak Rajar Deshe.