In Remembrance: Raju Patel

     Raju Patel, the producer of the Tom Hanks comedy Bachelor Party (1984) and the 1994 live action adaptation of The Jungle Book, has passed away on October 9, 2005 in Los Angeles. He was 45.

     Born and raised in Kenya, Patel first came to Hollywood in 1981 to distribute the docudrama Amin: The Rise And Fall, the story of brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, directed by his father, Sharad Patel. When his father became an executive producer on the Tom Hanks comedy Bachelor Party, Patel signed onto the film as a producer.

     Patel tried his hand at directing with 1987’s In The Shadow Of Kilimanjaro, a horror film based on an actual incident in 1984 when some 90,000 draught-starved baboons went on a rampage in Kenya killing animals and people indiscriminately.

     Patel spent the 1990s developing and producing live-action adaptations of two classic children’s stories- The Jungle Book and The Adventures Of Pinocchio (1996). The films were successful enough to each spawn a sequel- The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo (1997) and The New Adventures Of Pinocchio (1999). In 2002, he oversaw Kaante, a heist film shot in Los Angeles with A-list Bollywood stars. Kaante would be the first Indian film shot entirely in the United States. His final film was the 2003 horror film 11:14.