The renowned British comedian and theater actor Alistair McGowan has outed himself as an Indian in a BBC documentary “Who Do You Think You Are.”
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| Alistair McGowan as Dot Cotton in East Enders |
McGowan, who stars as Dot Cotton in the acclaimed BBC series the “East Enders,” said his Indian heritage was hidden from him by his father all his life. McGowan, 43, discovered his identity accidentally only after his death in 2003, when he searched for his father’s birth certificate to secure a certification of his death. The actor wrote in the Sunday Times: “On the 74-year-old slip of paper, under the word ‘caste,’ was the term ‘Anglo-Indian.”
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| Alistair McGowan undertaking a journey to his roots in India |
McGowan had never known his grandparents who died before he was born. His father was the product of an alliance between his grandfather John McGowan and Maria de la Cruz, an Indian woman from Kolkata, which was not uncommon in the colonial era. However, given Britain’s colonial legacy, many Anglo Indians hid their racial identity, McGowan’s father among them. |
