His grandparents migrated to Madras, India from Ohio, U.S., in November 1916.
From there, they moved to and settled in Lahore, in present-day Pakistan.
His father was born in Sialkot.
After the Partition of India, Alter's family too split into two; his grandparents chose to stay in Pakistan while his parents moved to India.
1950
Thomas Beach Alter (22 June 1950 – 29 September 2017) was an Indian actor.
He was best known for his works in Hindi cinema, and Indian theatre.
1954
After living in Allahabad, Jabalpur and Saharanpur, in 1954 they finally settled in Rajpur, Uttarakhand, then a small town located between Dehradun and Mussoorie; Rajpur is now considered a suburb of Dehradun.
Alter's siblings are older sister Martha Chen, who teaches at Harvard University and brother John, a poet.
Author Stephen Alter is a first cousin.
As a child, Alter studied Hindi among other subjects in Mussoorie.
Consequently, he came to be occasionally referred to as the "Blue-eyed saheb with impeccable Hindi."
He was educated in Mussoorie's Woodstock School.
At 18, Alter left for the U.S. for higher education and studied at Yale University for a year before returning to India upon losing interest in studies.
The following year, he obtained work as a teacher at St. Thomas School, Jagadhri, in Haryana.
He worked there for six months, simultaneously coaching his students in cricket.
Over the next two and a half years, Alter worked several jobs, teaching for a while at Woodstock School, Mussoorie, and working at a hospital in the U.S., and returning to India before continuing to work at Jagadhri.
At Jagadhri, he began to watch Hindi films.
It was during this time that he saw the Hindi film Aradhana, which proved to be a turning point in his career and drifted towards a career in acting, inspired by the lead actor Rajesh Khanna.
1972
He headed to Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, where he studied acting from 1972 to 1974 under Roshan Taneja.
1977
After graduating from FTII, Alter headed straight to Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) and soon got his first break in the Dev Anand starrer Saheb Bahadur (1977), directed by Chetan Anand.
However, his first release was Ramanand Sagar's Charas.
This was followed by roles in Des Pardes, Ram Bharose, Hum Kisise Kum Nahin and Parvarish.
He dubbed for actor Jeevan for the innocent person of the twin roles played by Jeevan in the film Amar Akbar Anthony.
Alter was fluent in Hindi and Urdu, and was knowledgeable about Indian culture.
He could also read Urdu and was fond of Shayari.
He worked for noted filmmakers like Satyajit Ray in Shatranj Ke Khilari and is remembered for his role as a British officer in Kranti.
1978
He got the opportunity to act with his idol Rajesh Khanna in the film Naukri, directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee in 1978 and later in Chetan Anand's Kudrat.
1993
In Sardar, the 1993 film biography of Indian leader Sardar Patel, which focused on the events surrounding the partition and independence of India, Alter portrayed Lord Mountbatten of Burma.
He also acted in the Hollywood movie One Night with the King with Peter O'Toole.
1996
In 1996 he appeared in the Assamese film Adajya, and in 2007 acted in William Dalrymple's City of Djinns alongside Zohra Sehgal and Manish Joshi Bismil.
He also appeared in the solo play Maulana and the film Ocean of An Old Man.
Alter played the role of a doctor in Bheja Fry, a comedy movie starring Rajat Kapoor.
2008
In 2008, he was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.
Born in Mussoorie in present-day Uttarakhand, Alter was the son of American Presbyterian missionaries of English, Scottish and Swiss German ancestry and lived for years in Mumbai and the Himalayan hill station of Landour.
2011
In April 2011 he acted in a short film Yours, Maria directed by Chirag Vadgama, playing the lead role of Matthew Chacha in the movie.
2012
Alter lent his voice for the authorized audio autobiography of Dr. Verghese Kurien, titled The Man Who Made The Elephant Dance, which was released in 2012.
Some of his most famous movie roles have been as Musa in Vidhu Vinod Chopra's acclaimed crime drama Parinda, Mahesh Bhatt's blockbuster romance Aashiqui, and Ketan Mehta's Sardar, in which Alter essayed the role of Lord Mountbatten.
2017
In a 2017 interview, he recalled, "I came to Mumbai to become Rajesh Khanna; didn't come to act on stage."
2018
His last film was Hamari Paltan (2018).
Alter appeared in many Indian television series, including Samvidhaan, all of which were praised by the audience for his acting.
