Mehran Karimi Nasseri has passed away at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle facility, the same place where he lived for more than 18 years
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian refugee who inspired the film “The Terminal” by director Steven Spielberg, died this Saturday at the age of 77 at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, northeast of Paris. Nasseri, who called himself ‘Sir Alfred’, died a natural death at noon, according to the AFP agency. ‘Sir Alfred’, who lived for more than 18 years in Terminal 1 of that Parisian airport, was born in 1945 in Masjed Soleiman, in the province of Khuzestan, in Iran. He was 20 years old when his father, an Iranian doctor, died. He made the decision to go in search of his mother, a British nurse, who never recognized him.
After a long journey that took him to London, Berlin and Amsterdam, Nassari arrived at the Parisian airport in November 1988, after the British authorities denied him entry because his papers were not in order. The Police of his country took away his passport and the British authorities had refused his nationality.
Illegally, he settled in a red armchair at the Paris international airport and made it his new home. At first, he went unnoticed among the thousands of travelers who stop at the airport until the press echoed his curious story, becoming the most famous ‘homeless’ in the world. In 1999, he obtained refugee status in France and a residence permit, but Nasseri did not want to move from the airport.
double inspiration
It inspired two films: ‘Tombé du ciel’ (‘In transit’, 1994) by French director Philippe Lioret and ‘La Terminal’ (2004), the dramatic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Spielberg was inspired by his bizarre life for the film, although Hollywood writers changed the story to make him Victor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a citizen of a fictional European country who gets stuck in John F. Kennedy International Airport, In New York.
Two years after the premiere of ‘The Terminal’, Alfred left the airport for the first time in 2006 to be admitted to the hospital. In recent years, he lived in a hostel in Paris. After spending much of the money he received for the film (300,000 euros, according to the French press), he had returned to the airport a few weeks ago. When he died, he had several thousand euros on him, according to AFP. ‘Sir Alfred’ was never able to fulfill his dream of living in the United States, he died in terminal 2F of the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, which for 18 years he considered his home.
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