Iranian exile who inspired Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Terminal’ dies at US airport

In 1988, Mehran set­tled at the air­port for the first time. (File)

Mehran Kari­mi Nasseri, the Iran­ian exile whose time at Paris Charles de Gaulle Air­port inspired film­mak­er Steven Spiel­berg’s film “The Ter­mi­nal,” died of a heart attack in Ter­mi­nal 2F of the same air­port on Sat­ur­day, Vari­ety reported.

The out­let has revealed that Mehran, who also went by the name Sir Alfred, had been liv­ing at the air­port again for the past few weeks. He lived in Ter­mi­nal 1 of Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Mehran Kari­mi Nasseri shaves ear­ly in the morn­ing in Ter­mi­nal 1 of Charles De Gaulle Air­port in Paris

In 1988, Mehran set­tled at the air­port for the first time after the UK refused him polit­i­cal asy­lum as a refugee despite hav­ing a Scot­tish mother.

Accord­ing to Vari­ety, he made a con­scious deci­sion to live at the air­port after declar­ing him­self state­less and report­ed­ly always had his lug­gage by his side.

Mehran Kari­mi Nasseri falls asleep ear­ly in the morn­ing in Ter­mi­nal 1 of Charles De Gaulle Air­port in Paris

Mehran, who first left the air­port when he was hos­pi­tal­ized in 2006, 18 years after set­tling there, spent his time read­ing, jour­nal­ing and study­ing eco­nom­ics, Vari­ety reported.

Spiel­berg decid­ed to direct the 2004 film The Ter­mi­nal due to his uncon­ven­tion­al sit­u­a­tion. In it, Tom Han­ks played an East­ern Euro­pean liv­ing at New York’s John F. Kennedy Air­port after being denied entry into the Unit­ed States.

Mehran Kari­mi Nasseri looks at a poster of the film inspired by his life

Apart from that, the 1993 French film Tombes du ciel, star­ring Jean Rochefort, was also inspired by Mehran, which has been the sub­ject of numer­ous doc­u­men­taries and jour­nal­is­tic profiles.

Accord­ing to Vari­ety, he was said to have been born in the Iran­ian city of Mas­jed Soleiman in 1945, and his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, titled The Ter­mi­nal Man, was pub­lished in 2004.

(Except for the head­line, this sto­ry was not edit­ed by us and was pub­lished by a syn­di­cat­ed feed.)