July 30, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 29, 1424

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NEW DELHI, July 29: Bollywood’s legendary comedian Johny Walker, who acted in more than 300 films, died on Tuesday after entertaining audiences in the film-crazy South Asian subcontinent for over four decades, friends said.

He was 79.Born in 1924, Badruddin Jamaluddin Kazi borrowed his name from the popular Scotch whiskey brand and first entered India’s nascent film industry as a comedian in 1952 when he was offered the role in “Hulchul”.

Walker played the tipsy man to perfection even though he was a teetotaller, and he never failed to send his audiences into roars of laughter with the slightest twitch of his facial muscles and his inimitable squeaky accent.

Walker, who regarded his face as his fortune, in the latter part of his career had lamented “the steady vulgarisation of comedy” through slapstick deployed by unimaginative directors.

The actor quit Bollywood in the early 1980s after acting in 300 films but ended his 13-year retirement to accept a role in a Hindi remake of Mrs Doubtfire done by Bollywood director-actor Kamal Hassan.—AFP