Veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. He has been admitted to a hospital in Kolkata. The octogenarian actor was unwell and he tested positive for the infection on Thursday morning.

Soumitra Chatterjee is an Indian film actor. He is best known for his collaborations with Oscar-winning film director Satyajit Ray, with whom he worked in fourteen films. He is also the first Indian film personality conferred with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's highest award for artists. He is also the winner of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award which is India's highest award for cinema. In 2018 exactly thirty years after auteur Satyajit Ray was honoured with France's highest civilian award, the coveted Legion of Honor, thespian Soumitra Chatterjee, arguably, the most prominent face of Ray's films, also received the prestigious award as the first ever Indian actor.

Soumitra was born in Mirjapur Street in Calcutta, in 1935. His grandfather was the president of one such group while his father, though lawyer by profession and later a government worker, also worked as an amateur actor. He started acting in school plays. Encouraged by the praise he received for his acting, gradually his interest in theatre grew with passing years, thus in late school years, he was taking acting seriously. He was a very close friend of famous theatre personality, Mrityunjay Sil who is often regarded as the person due to which Soumitra is a star.

Starting with his debut film, Apur Sansar as adult Apu, the third part of Apu Trilogy, he went on to work in several notable films with Ray, including Abhijan, Charulata as Amal, Aranyer Din Ratri; Ashani Sanket; Sonar Kella and Joi Baba Felunath as Feluda; Hirak Rajar Deshe, Ghare Baire as Sandeep, Shakha Proshakha and Ganashatru. Meanwhile, he also worked with other noted directors of Bengali cinema, with Mrinal Sen in Akash Kusum, Tapan Sinha in Kshudhita Pashan, Jhinder Bandi, Atonko, Asit Sen in Swaralipi, Ajoy Kar in Otol Joler Ahoban Saat, Pake Bandha, Parineeta, and Tarun Mazumdar in Sansar Simante, Ganadevata, Poth o Prasad,Agomon. He acted more than 210 films in his career till 2016. He also received critical favour for his directorial venture Stree Ki Patra which is based on Streer Patra, a Bengali short story written by Tagore.