Refugee who inspired Tom Hanks movie after living in a departure terminal for 18 years dies in Paris airport
Christophe Calais/Corbis via Getty Images
- Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian-born refugee, died in Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport on Saturday.
- He lived in the airport for 18 years, from 1988 until 2006. AP reported that he returned in recent weeks.
- His life story inspired "The Terminal" — a 2004 movie produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian-born refugee who lived inside Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France, for 18 years and inspired the 2004 movie "The Terminal," died in that airport on Saturday.
Nasseri, 76, had a heart attack in Terminal 2F of the airport around midday on Saturday, according to a Paris airport authority official, per Sky News.
Al Jazeera said he was treated by the airport medical team, who could not save him. He was then pronounced dead, according to an airport spokesperson, CNN reported.
Nasseri lived in the departure lounge of Charles de Gaulle airport from 1988 until July 2006, initially because he lacked residency papers, according to Associated Press.
Per the news agency, when Nasseri eventually received refugee papers, he refused to sign them. He ended up staying on a red plastic bench in the airport until he was hospitalized in 2006, Associated Press reported.
After his hospitalization, he stayed at a homeless shelter in Paris, per BBC News.
Associated Press said he returned to living in the airport weeks before his death, citing an airport official.
An airport spokesperson told CNN that Nasseri was an "iconic character" at the airport, who was looked after by staff for many years "even if we would have preferred him to find a real shelter."
According to an airport doctor, years of living in a windowless space impacted his physical and mental health, and he had become "fossilized," Sky News reported.
The airport did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Eric Fougere/VIP Images/Corbis via Getty Images
In 2003, The New York Times reported that Spielberg had purchased the rights to Nasseri's life story for approximately $250,000.
Nasseri's astonishing story inspired the 2004 movie "The Terminal," produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stanley Tucci.
The movie, loosely based on Nasseri's life story, followed a fictional Eastern European man who was stuck in New York's John F. Kennedy airport after being denied entry to the US and unable to return to his native country because of political reasons instability.
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