The first Bollywood-Hollywood crossover hero

.............................the first Bollywood-Hollywood crossover hero was a young lad named Sabu Dastagir who was from a mahout family in Mysore, and was cast as an elephant rider in the 1937 film Elephant Boy, based on a Rudyard Kipling story.

Sabu went on to live in the US, starring in Jungle Book (in which he predictably plays Mowgli, the junglee boy) and The Thief of Baghdad. Taking up US citizenship in 1944, he joined the US Air Force as a tail gunner, flying several dozen missions during World War II and winning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He later married the actress Marilyn Cooper, and they remained together for 15 years till he died at a young age of 39...............................

(INDIASPORA, Bollywood in Hollywood
6 Jul 2008, Chidanand Rajghatta, The Times Of India)
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