Man who inspired The Terminal dies in airport
AN IRANIAN man who got stuck in a Paris airport for 18 years, inspiring a Steven Spielberg movie starring Tom Hanks, died at the terminal yesterday.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri died of natural causes just before midday yesterday in terminal 2F at Charles de Gaulle airport.
Caught originally in an immigration trap – unable to enter France and with nowhere to go – he became dependent on his unusual place of abode and increasingly a national and international cause celebre.
He called himself ‘Sir Alfred’ and a small section of airport parquet and plastic bench became his domain.
Nasseri’s story came to the attention of Hollywood director Spielberg, inspiring 2004 film The Terminal, which starred Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Hanks played a man who becomes trapped at New York’s JFK airport when his home country collapses into revolution.
After spending most of the money he received for the film, Nasseri returned to the airport a few weeks ago. Several thousand euros were found on his body.
Born in 1945 in Masjed Soleiman, Iran, Nasseri took up residence in the airport in 1988 after flying from Iran to London, Berlin and Amsterdam in an effort to locate his mother
He had been expelled from everywhere else as he didn’t have the right paperwork.