The 1950s saw a new wave of young, educated Indian professionals enter the United States, attracted by the booming economy and a postwar spirit of opportunity. There, they were met with an uneasy sort of acceptance, residents of American suburbs charmed by these polite, educated young men, while privately wondering if, back home, they slept on a bed of snakes and tucked into the contents of a warmed-up monkey's skull. At the time, positive Asian role models were thin on the ground, but one early star was Korla Pandit.

Pandit's daily and weekly shows for Hollywood TV station KTLA, later syndicated across the United States, brought an Asian face straight into middle America's living room. Introduced by a close-up of a flaming brazier, a turban-clad Pandit greeted his audience with a warm, doe-eyed gaze and proceeded to play rolling, eastern-tinged melodies on a synthesiser and grand piano as some disembodied voice spoke platitudes about how "wisdom is better than rubies, and all things to be desired are not to be compared to it".

It was an exotic, surreal version of Indian culture, for sure, but Pandit was a benign sort of presence, and there was no confusing the enthusiasm with which middle America clasped him to their breast. Wealthy housewives sent him gifts like grand pianos, while his otherworldy synth albums like The Universal Language Of Music sold thousands.

Eventually, Pandit's star would fade. He was replaced in his daytime show by another up-and-coming pianist, Liberace, and, robbed of his place on the small screen, he retreated into the Hollywood underground, playing theatres, skating rinks, and drive-ins. In time, though, his records were rediscovered by an younger audience hungry for kitsch and exotica, and Pandit enjoyed an unlikely resurgence in popularity in the 1980s and 90s, including a haunting cameo in Ed Wood, Tim Burton's biopic of the catastrophic B-movie director.

Pandit died in 1998 after a long struggle with diabetes. Then, two years later, something weird happened. RJ Smith, a journalist for a Los Angeles gossip title, published an article revealing that Pandit wasn't actually Indian at all. It turned out Pandit was not the golden child of one of New Delhi's first families, but the more conventional John Roland Redd - the son of a Missouri preacher and his African-American wife. Pandit's entire backstory was cooked up with the help of his wife Beryl, a Disney Studios artist. On the page, maybe, this makes Pandit a fraud, no more authentic than the blacked-up performers of The Black And White Minstrel Show. In the context of Hollywood, though, Korla Pandit could be seen as one of the most complete examples of Tinseltown's thirst for wish fulfilment. John Roland Redd didn't just play his role, he became it. And odd as that seems, it's hard to overlook the fact that, for many Americans, his was the first friendly Asian face they knew.

· The Grand Moghul Suite/The Universal Language Of Music Vol 1 is out now on El/Cherry Red