Rajendra Kumar
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Rajendra Kumar (20 July 1929 - 29 July 1999) was an Indian movie actor, who acted in Bollywood films mostly from the 1950s through the 1960s and 1970s. He has also produced and directed movies. He was born in Sialkot, in the West Punjab province of British India, currently in Pakistan. He is the father of actor Kumar Gaurav. His son married actor Sanjay Dutt's sister Namrata Dutt. Rajendra had acted with Sanjay's father and mother Sunil Dutt and Nargis in the blockbuster Mother India which shot him to fame.
[edit] Career
He made his debut in Jogan in 1950 in which he starred opposite Dilip Kumar and Nargis. He was then noticed in the blockbuster hit Mother India in 1957 in which he played Nargis's son.
The 1960s saw Rajendra Kumar rise like no other star had risen, and there was a time when every film starring him was a silver jubilee hit. There were times when he had six or seven films running in their silver jubilee weeks at the same time. It was a success that was unbelievable and Rajendra Kumar was soon known as "Jubilee Kumar". No other actor has had as many silver and golden jubilees, sometimes in a row, which is a record good enough to go into the Guinness Book of Records.
He had many successful box office hits including Dhool Ka Phool (1959), Mere Mehboob (1963), Sangam (1964), Arzoo (1965), Suraj (1966) and Ganwar (1970). He was considered a golden boy for the movie producers in the sense that he was the actor who could recover the producers' money in a matter of few weeks.
However, the mid-1970s proved devastating for Rajendra Kumar. Several of his films bombed at the box office, and he was not getting the offers he used to receive earlier. It was the bleakest point in his career as he said in an interview. However, the sunshine came when he was offered an interesting role in the film Saajan Bina Suhaagan opposite Nutan. The film was a huge blockbuster of 1978. Rajendra Kumar had regained his 'Midas Touch'. He then switched from leading roles and played many character roles in the late 1970s and 1980s.
In 1981 Rajendra introduced his son Kumar Gaurav in the film Love Story which he produced, directed and also starred in. The film was declared the blockbuster of 1981. But the success was shortlived as Kumar Gaurav's later films were huge disappointments at the box office and his son's career declined as soon as it began. Rajendra also produced and acted with his son in Phool (1993) but this was also a failure. Kumar's last film appearance was a minor role in Deepa Mehta's critically acclaimed film Earth in 1998.
He was also a co-producer of the 1994 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's book The Jungle Book.
He died on July 29, 1999 of cancer only nine days after his 70th birthday and the birthday of his son's brother-in-law Sanjay Dutt. He was known to never have taken medicines in his entire life.
[edit] Honors
- Rajendra Kumar was honoured with the Padma Shri Award in 1969.
- He was also conferred with Justice of Peace honour and served as Honorary Magistrate.
- He was awarded the National Honour by late Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru simultaneously for “Kanoon” (Hindi) and “Mehandi Rang Lagyo” (Gujarati).
- He received a special Shastri National Award and was associated with several charity schemes. [1]
