Bollywood's most-reputed acting teacher Roshan Taneja - who was coach to several top stars and considered a 'pioneer in method acting' - passed away on Friday night. He was 87.
Taneja taught at the Pune-based Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) and later founded the Roshan Taneja School of Acting in Mumbai.
He had trained actors and actresses like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, Jaya Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Sunny Deol, Tabu, Madhuri Dixit-Nene, Juhi Chawla-Mehta, Govinda, Rakesh Bedi, Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgn, Mithun Chakraborty, Abhishek Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Tushar Kapoor, Rani Mukherji, Ranbir Kapoor, Emraan Hashmi, Gulshan Grover, Mazhar Khan, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Sonam Kapoor and many more.
He is survived by wife, Mithika, and sons, Rohit and Rahul.
"He passed away last night following prolonged illness," Rohit said.
He had been training students since the sixties and had been active since couple of years ago.
He was one of the revered personalities in the Hindi film industry.
"He was my guru at FTII and the only person whose feet I touched. I was privileged to be trained in acting by him," said Shabana Azmi.
Actor Rakesh Bedi said it is very sad day for me. "My guru Roshan Taneja expired yesterday. I owe my career to him. Rest in peace," he said.
Filmmaker Atanu Ghosh tweeted: "With him, ended an illustrious era spanning more than five decades. The greatest teacher of method acting we ever had. The revered guru to no less than four generations of brilliant actors. Rest in peace sir."