From Hoshiarpur To Hollywood

You could call it the tale of the turban. When Kavi Raz, who is originally from the town of Hoshiarpur in Punjab came to Hollywood in the 1970s, he was forced to put on a turban and an accent for every audition. There were few brown faces in Hollywood at that time, and when he went to casting directors’ offices, they would say, “What are you here for?”

He recalls, “Even if I was there for an Asian role, they would cast a Mexican or an Italian or a white actor with dark hair and make him look Indian. It was such a struggle. They didn’t take me seriously in the beginning. But I stuck it out, I just kept at it.”

Now after 200 roles in TV and film behind him, including a five-year stint as a regular on St. Elsewhere, Raz has opted to put on a turban of his own accord. He is the producer, director and actor in The Gold Bracelet, a film about a Sikh family after 9/11. It was honored with the Audience Choice Award as the best feature at Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, Calif., and is currently showing at the Palm Springs Film Festival. Says Raz, “It was really tough, the life of an independent producer. It’s been a struggle financially, but I believe in the movie so much. American audiences are blown away by it. I have Americans coming up to me and saying, “This is an American story. You’ve made an American film.”

So why did an engineer chose the ups and downs of the world of cinema? It all started back in Punjab, where his father was an officer in the army during the British Raj. The children were often taken to the cinema by junior officers, and in small dusty picture halls in Punjab Raz got his first taste of cinema. He was hooked for life.

The family immigrated to the United Kingdom under a scheme offering visas to ex-army officers, and settled down in Birmingham. There Raz and his brother continued their love affair with film: “There were two cinema halls at the opposite ends of town which showed Hindi movies. We would watch a morning movie in one, then take the bus across town to the other one, catch the show there and then go back to watch Dara Singh’s movie, which was shown in the last show.”

The family moved to Yuba City in California and the next three years were grueling with the entire family working long hours as farm laborers. As the family prospered, they moved to the Bay area and Raz got a master’s in industrial engineering, before he heard the siren call of Hollywood.

Any regrets about not following the practical financial path of an engineer? Raz admits he’s had some, especially when things got tough with only terrorist roles or B-grade movies, which went straight to video. But cinema is a drug you can’t give up easily. Raz is relishing the success of The Gold Bracelet and the journey which began in Hoshiarpur most definitely ends in Hollywood, in a turban and with pride.