Mumbai, Jan. 6 (Agencies): Veteran actor Om Puri, who successfully straddled movie careers in Bollywood and the West, died on Friday morning after a massive cardiac arrest.

Puri, 66, is survived by estranged wife Nandita and son Ishsan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and a host of leaders, Bollywood stars and fans took to twitter to condole Puri's death.

Puri cut his teeth in the 1980s with alternative art cinema that found a niche audience in India, playing several memorable characters that depicted the angst of the times. He made his film debut in 1976, with the Marathi film Ghashiram Kotwal.

He also worked in several Hollywood and British films, including The Reluctant Fundamentalist, East is East, and most recently in The Hundred-Foot Journey, opposite Britain's Helen Mirren.

“He showed that you didn't have to be 'fair' and 'good-looking' to be a protagonist,” Saeed Akhtar Mirza, who directed Puri in one of his earliest films, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai (Why does Albert Pinto get Angry?), told Reuters. “It was just the force of his personality and his performance.”

Several Bollywood stars, fans and Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to pay their respects.

“Who dare say Om Puri is no more? He lives through his work,” actor Kamal Hassan tweeted.

He was an alumnus of the Film & Television Institute of India and later, the National School of Drama, where Naseeruddin Shah was a fellow student.

His work in Govind Nihalani's Ardh Satya (Half-Truth) and later Aakrosh (Rage) won him several accolades. He was honoured with the Padmi Shri, the country's fourth highest civilian award, in 1990.

Along with Shah, Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil, Puri was seen as one of the stars of the alternative cinema movement that contrasted sharply with Bollywood's usual fare.

His distinctive baritone, and ability to switch seamlessly between art house, Bollywood, Hollywood and British film, made him an international star, one of the few Indian actors to cross over to the West before the likes Irrfan Khan and Priyanka Chopra made the jump.

The veteran actor also had an impressive body of work on television, starring in projects such as Bharat: Ek Khoj, Mr Yogi, Kakaji Kahin, Rishte, Aahat, Safar, Sea Hawks, White Teeth and Canterbury Tales.