Comedian Rangeela dies in Lahore

By Shahid Malik
BBC News, Lahore

Rangeela began work painting film adverts

One of Pakistan's most popular film comedians, Rangeela, has died in Lahore after a protracted illness. He was 68.

A doctor at Lahore's Sharif Medical City Complex said Rangeela died of renal failure.

Rangeela will be best remembered for his inimitable use of body language and his pliable face which he exploited to the maximum for humorous effect.

He featured in nearly 300 Urdu and Punjabi-language films and also worked as a producer and screenwriter.

'A colourful character'

Born as Saeed Khan in Peshawar, Rangeela started his career as a paint boy, making small hoardings for film publicity in Lahore.

It was in the early 1960s that he got a chance to appear in a couple of feature films, adopting the pseudonym Rangeela, which literally means "a colourful character".

By dint of hard work and his natural flair for comic acting, he soon came to be counted among the leading lights of Pakistani cinema.

Later in his career, he produced more than half a dozen feature films. In some of them he took the lead role, wrote the screenplay and also recorded lyrics as a playback singer.

His film Rangeela - supposedly based on his own life - was an instant hit.

He spent much of the last part of his life in and out of hospital being treated for kidney problems.