In 2004, at the time of the release of the film “The Terminal”, he received journalists on a red bench at Roissy airport, who came en masse from all over the world to meet the man who had inspired the American director Steven Spielberg . Mehran Karimi Nasseri – alias Sir Alfred, as he called himself – died this Saturday in this same airport, where he spent eighteen years of his life.
He died a natural death shortly before noon at Terminal 2F, an airport source said. After spending the money received for the film, this Iranian political refugee had returned to the airport for a few weeks, added the same source. Several thousand euros were found on him.
When we met him, eighteen years ago, he said he was “flattered to see that his experience could inspire films” and did up to six daily interviews. He spent his days writing “about his life” in a notebook, studying, “reading the American and English press” as well as novels.
“But hey, here, it’s not a life! I hope that The terminal will help me go to the United States,” he hoped. Dreaming then of a “happy ending in California…”
Refugee status in France
Born in 1945 in Masjed Soleiman, in the Iranian province of Khuzestan, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, had taken up residence in Roissy, north of Paris, in November 1988, after a long journey – in search of his mother – which had led him in London, Berlin or Amsterdam. Each time, he had been expelled by the authorities, for lack of being able to present papers.
In 1999, he obtained refugee status in France and a residence permit. But, confused, the exile had refused to sign his new papers. “They are not in my name. I am no longer who I was. My name is now Sir Alfred Merhan and I am not Iranian. My father was Swedish and my mother, Danish”, he had justified. “Madness has definitely won,” wrote L’Express at the time.
Deciding to make Roissy his refuge, Sir Alfred had become familiar with the airport staff and an emblematic figure, being the subject of numerous television and radio reports, French and foreign, before his cinematographic consecration. His daily life then unfolded in a triangle of a few square meters, between sandwich shops and a McDo. A toilet at the airport doubled as a bathroom. Regularly, he brought his jackets and trousers to the cleaners.
“Honest but not talkative”
In 2004, a grocer described him as an “honest but not talkative” customer. “He’s a hermit, he reminds me of a monk immersed in a modern universe”, had also indicated the laundress.
It was Tom Hanks who had interpreted his role in “The Terminal”. His story also inspired the French director Philippe Lioret, with “Tombés du ciel”, released in 1994.
In 2006, two years after Spielberg’s film, Sir Alfred had left the airport for the hospital, before being accommodated in an Emmaüs home, reported Release. He had then lived in a hotel thanks to the money from the “Terminal”.