Biography
It’s no surprise that Erick Avari has deftly
adapted himself to roles that span a range of more
that two dozen ethnicities—that is, if you call
Bajoran and Klingon “ethnicities.” His childhood
in Darjeeling, a mystically beautiful Himalayan town
in northern Indian, uniquely prepared him for a career
that has taken him from the cricket field to outer
space and back several times. The town is a crossroads
for people from Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and other exotic
locales as well as a favorite vacation spot for aristocratic
Europeans and, in the 1960s and ‘70s, a required
stop for youthful Americans and Australians on the
so-called “hippie trail.”
“In Darjeeling, it was necessary to learn several
languages to be able to communicate with the limitless
variety of people we met – from the Dalai Lama,
when he fled Tibet to the royal families of Bhutan
and Sikkim. My primary language is obviously English,
but I learned Nepali, Bengali, Hindi and Gujerati
as a child, and with them the customs of a polyglot
nation. Tenzing Norgay, who surmounted Everest with
Sir Edmund Hilary, lived around the corner,”
Avari remembers.
“My father had been Chief Game Warden of the
West Bengal Forests as a young man and his cronies
came from all over the world to visit the jungles
around us. Canadian and Belgian Jesuits staffed the
schools I went to. It was as international a place
as New York or Los Angeles, although on a much more
intimate scale.”
His childhood also introduced him to the joys of
the cinema early on. Both his parents came from families
that owned movie theaters throughout India and other
parts of Asia. His maternal great-grandfather was
a theatrical producer during the Victorian era, known
for introducing women to the Indian stage.
“We saw at least two films a week in English,
at my father’s theaters, the Capitol and the
Rink. If we wanted, there were Hindi and Bengali movies
as well. My family always knew I’d be in the
film industry, but I don’t think that this is
what they imagined,” he laughs.
A small part in legendary film director Satyajit
Ray’s “Kachenjunga” and an encounter
with the Kendall family, several generations of English
actors on a tour of India that was documented in the
Merchant-Ivory film “Shakespearewallah,”
gave shape to Avari’s dreams of becoming a professional
actor.
“It’s crazy when I think about it now.
I didn’t know anything about professional training
programs, I knew no one in the United States, but
I knew that I had to be here.” After several
years of college in India, Avari won a scholarship
to the College of Charleston, in South Carolina and
he was on his way to America.
A career awaited him that would include Broadway
plays, major motion pictures and hit TV series, as
well as the requisite years of struggle. These days,
Avari is featured in three films about to open: MR.
Deeds, Adam Sandler’s take on the classic Gary
Cooper film; Three Days of Rain, premiering at the
Tribeca Film Festival and Master Of Disguise, Dana
Carvey’s return to the big screen. In 2003, he
will also be seen in Daredevil, starring Jennifer
Garner and Ben Affleck, and SEARCHING FOR HAIZMANN.
