10 Most memorable Christian characters in Bollywood

1. Amitabh Bachchan as Anthony Gonzalves
When Manmohan Desai made a film on secular values, he naturally called it Amar Akbar Anthony and chose his favourite actor to play Anthony. The Big B played the character with a frisky flourish and whisky swig, drunken monologue, popping out of an Easter egg and wooing the neighbourhood Catholic beauty Jenny with a flamboyance that made the caricatural character so distinctly unique. Anthony Gonzalves was the name of music composer Pyarelal’s music teacher in Goa. Desai decided to borrow the name... and make history.

2. Nadira as Margaret
Though the focus in K.S. Sethumadhan’s Julie was on Laxmi who played the title role it was the fiery Nadira who stole the show with her bravura performance. Playing a protective mother dealing with a pregnant unwed daughter, Nadira simply brought the house down. Incidentally Nadira’s daughter was played by Sridevi and her husband was played by Om Prakash. He looked as Catholic as Nasir Husain as the priest in Amar Akbar Anthony.

3. Lilette Dubey as Emily Lobo
Anjan Dutta’s Bow Barracks Forever had Lilette Dubey play her alcoholic dysfunctional character with delicious abandon.

4. Lalita Pawar as Mrs D’Sa
Who but Hrishikesh Mukherjee would have the guts to cast Lalita Pawar with her negative image as a benevolent landlady who treats her naïve tenant Raj Kapoor as her son? Decades later, Zohra Sehgal played the same role in Saawariya.

5. Dimple Kapadia as Bobby Braganza
“I’m Bobby. Mujhse dosti karoge?” asked Dimple to the open-mouthed Rishi Kapoor. Dimple played the 16-year-old Catholic girl as a spunky siren and her polka-dotted tops and clingy skirts became a craze.

6. Ranjeeta Kaur as Lily Fernandes
Ranjeeta played Ali Macgraw from Erich Segal’s Love Story. A spirited outspoken Catholic girl from the working class, so cute was she that after the release of the film Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se every college-going chap dreamt of marrying a girl with a cross in a  chain dangling around her neck.

7. Naseeruddin Shah as Albert Pinto
The question that Saeed Mirza asked, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai?  still holds...The things that make us angry would still make Albert angry. Only Naseeruddin Shah would be so livid and yet hold such an authentic Anglo accent in place. Recently the fiasco film My Friend Pinto paid a homage to Albert Pinto. Prateik Babbar claimed to be Albert’s nephew in the film.

8. Jennifer Kappor as Violet Stoneham
The heartbreaking Christmas sequence where the trusting old Anglo-Indian lady finds out how she has been betrayed, remains a high-point in the portrayal of the minority community’s isolation. Considered one of the finest performances by a female actor in India, Jennifer Kapoor in Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringee Lane was a lonely old Anglo-Indian woman in Kolkata, exploited by a young unmarried couple who use her for their own purposes. When she lost the National Award, her enraged husband famously made the statement about awards being given to women for soaping their armpits under municipal taps (Shashi referred to Smita Patil in Chakra).

9. Vikram as David
Playing a goofy Goan boozard in Bejoy Nmabiar’s film the amazing  Tamil actor Vikram was so starkly in-character that we were left wondering  how he managed to stay on his feet so drunk.

10. Simi Garewal as Mary: The prim sexy English teacher in school...Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker tapped Simi’s sophisticated personality better than anyone else. ‘Bharat’ Manoj Kumar played her boyfriend and they even shared a torrid smooch!