Gurudas Banerjee


Gurudas Banerjee, also known as Gurudas Bandyopadhyay, is a Bengali stage and film actor who was active from the 1940s through the 1980s. As an actor, he commonly played holy men, especially the 19th century Bengali mystic Sri Ramakrishna, a role he was said to "almost monopolize." He acted in more than 80 films, mostly in Bengali. With his wife, actress Molina Devi, he also directed a Calcutta-based theatre troupe, M. G. Enterprises.

Biography

Gurudas Banerjee had his stage debut in 1948 at Calcutta's Kalika Theatre in the role of Sri Ramakrishna in Yugadevata. He continued acting in theatre and cinema until the 1980s.
Banerjee married Molina Devi, who has been characterized as "one of the finest actresses of Indian theatre and cinema." Together, they operated their own touring theatre, M. G. Enterprises, which "specialized in commercial productions of devotional drama"
in which Banerjee played the role of Sri Ramakrishna and other holy men.

Roles

Gurudas Banerjee acted in a variety of roles, very commonly as Sri Ramakrishna, which he played on both stage and in film.
Other roles that Banerjee played in film included
Sadhak Bamakhyapa,
Gobinda, Husband Of Chandi,
Ramola's Father,
Jitu, Anita's Father,
Pishemashai,
Neepa's Father, and
Agniswar's Father-in-law.
From the 1950s through the 1970s, Gurudas Banerjee commonly portrayed Ramakrishna in the Bengali Theatre and films. Beginning in the late 1940s, "he almost monopolized this role as a specialist, both on the stage and on the screen," and was still portraying Ramakrishna in the late-1970s. Sushil Mukherjee explains that the drama Jugadevata, which debuted on the Calcutta stage on 19 November 1948,
Films in which Banerjee played the role of Ramakrishna included Rani Rashmoni, Mahakavi Girish Chandra, Bireswar Vivekananda, and Jata Mat Tata Path.
Theatrical plays in which Banerjee played Ramakrishna included Jugadebata, Thakur Sri Ramakrishna, and Nata Nati.
In fact he was the only actor to play roles of all the prominent Shaakto mystics of the 18th and 19th Century Bengal, namely Sadhak Ramprasad, Kamalakanta Bhattacharya, Shri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Sadhak Bamakhyapa.

Reception

According to Sushil Mukherjee, in the many screen and stage appearances since 1948 in which Banerjee and Molina Devi have played Ramakrishna and Rani Rashmoni together, they "have carried the audience with them in every performance."
In 1966, The Illustrated Weekly of India mentioned Banerjee's troupe's performance in a review of the 1965-66 theatre season in Delhi.
The Weekly stated that

Filmography

Gurudas Banerjee acted in more than 80 films, mostly in Bengali, as listed here :
Further details on selected films appear in the table below. Films known to be dubbed versions of other films have not been listed. Any films known to be multilinguals are explicitly noted as multilinguals.
YearFilm TitleBanerjee RoleFilm DirectorNotes & Sources
1950JugadebataSri RamakrishnaBidhayak BhattacharyaBengali; Sources: DBs, other
1950VidyasagarSri RamakrishnaKali Prasad GhoshBengali; Sources: DBs, other
1952VidyasagarSri RamakrishnaKali Prasad GhoshHindi; Sources: DBs
1955Rani RashmoniSri RamakrishnaKali Prasad GhoshBengali; Sources: DBs Molina Devi as Rani Rashmoni
1958Sadhak BamakhyapaSadhak BamakhyapaBanshi AshBengali; Sources: DBs
1956Mahakavi Girish ChandraSri RamakrishnaMadhu BoseBengali; Sources: DBs Pahari Sanyal as Girish Chandra Ghosh. The film won a 1956 Certificate of Merit.
1964Bireswar VivekanandaSri RamakrishnaMadhu BoseBengali; Sources: DBs Amaresh Das as Vivekananda
1979Jata Mat Tata Path Sri RamakrishnaGurudas BagchiBengali; Sources: DBs

Theatre roles

The following table chronicles Gurudas Banerjee's stage career. It is not complete.
Opening dateTitleRoleLocation
Calcutta unless otherwise specified		PlaywrightDirectorNotes and other cast
19 Nov. 1948JugadebataSri RamakrishnaKalika TheatreTarak MukherjeeSource; Also Molina Debi
1955Thakur Sri RamakrishnaSri RamakrishnaMinerva TheatreSource; Also Molina Debi. Part of a state Congress celebration
1975Nata NatiSri RamakrishnaRangana TheatreGanesh MukherjeeGanesh MukherjeeSource; Kartick Banerjee, Basanti Chaterjee, Sudhangsu Maiti, and others. Over 300 performances
Oct. 1977Rajadrohi?Rungmahal TheatreSaradindu BanerjeeSource; Dilip Roy, Lily Chakraverti