Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan (
IPA: [əmɪˈtaːbʱ ˈbəttʃən]; 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of
Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades.
[1][2] Bachchan is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of
Indian cinema.
[3][4][5][6] So total was his dominance of the movie scene in the 1970s and 1980s that the French director
Francois Truffaut called him a "one-man industry”.
[7]
Early and personal life
Bachchan was born in
Allahabad,
Uttar Pradesh, in north central India. His father,
Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was a
Hindi poet and his mother,
Teji Bachchan, was a
Sikh from
Faisalabad (now in
Pakistan).
[8] Bachchan was initially named Inquilaab, inspired from the phrase made famous during the Indian independence struggle,
Inquilab Zindabad, which means "long live revolution". However, at the suggestion of fellow poet
Sumitranandan Pant, Harivansh Rai changed the name to Amitabh which means, "the light that would never go off." Though his surname was
Shrivastava,
his father had adopted the pen-name Bachchan (meaning "child-like" in
colloquial Hindi), under which he published all his works. It is with
this last name that Amitabh debuted in films, and, for all public
purposes, it has become the surname of all members of his family.
Bachchan's father died in 2003 and his mother in 2007.
[9]
Amitabh is the elder of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's two sons, the second
being Ajitabh. His mother had a keen interest in theatre and had been
offered a role in a film, but preferred her domestic duties. She had
some degree of influence in Bachchan's choice of career because she
always insisted that he should take the centre stage.
[10]
Career
Early work: 1969–1972
Anand (1971)
followed, where he starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. Bachchan's role as a
doctor with a cynical view of life garned him his first
Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. He then played his first negative role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in
Parwaana (1971). This was followed by several films including
Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film
Guddiwhich starred his future wife
Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film
Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy
Bombay to Goa, directed by
S. Ramanathan. Many of his films during this early period did not do well, but that was about to change.
[14]
Rise to stardom: 1973–1983
Director
Prakash Mehra cast him in the leading role for the film
Zanjeer (1973)
as Inspector Vijay Khanna. The film was a sharp contrast to the
romantically themed films that had generally preceded it and established
Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of
Bollywood cinema.
[2] Filmfare considers this one of the iconic performances of Bollywood history.
[14] The
film was a huge success and one of the highest grossing films of that
year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a
star.
[15] From
then onwards, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of
the film industry. He earned his first Filmfare nomination for Best
Actor for
Zanjeer. The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together; not only in
Zanjeer but in films such as
Abhimaan which
followed and was released only a month after their marriage and was
also successful at the box office. Later, Bachchan played the role of
Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film
Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by
Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second
Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award.
In 1974, Bachchan made several guest appearances in films such as
Kunwara Baap and
Dost, before playing a supporting role in
Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The film, directed and written by
Manoj Kumar,
addressed themes of honesty in the face of oppression and financial and
emotional hardship and was the top earning film of 1974. Bachchan then
played the leading role in film
Majboor, released on 6 December 1974, which was a remake of the
Hollywood film
Zig Zag. The film was a success at the box office.
[16] Two
of his other releases that year viz. Kasauti and Benaam also made money
making his success at the box office consistent. In 1975, he starred in
a variety of film genres from the comedy
Chupke Chupke, the crime drama
Faraar to the romantic drama
Mili. 1975 was the year when he appeared in two films which are regarded as important in Hindi cinematic history. He starred in the
Yash Chopra directed film
Deewaar, opposite
Shashi Kapoor,
Nirupa Roy, and
Neetu Singh,
which earned him a Filmfare Nomination for Best Actor. The film became a
major hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number 4.
[17] Indiatimes Movies ranks
Deewaar amongst the
Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films.
[18]Released on 15 August 1975 was
Sholay, which became the highest grossing film of 1975 and also of all time in India, earning
INR 2,36,45,00,000 equivalent to US$ 60 million, after adjusting for
inflation.
[19]Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. In 1999,
BBC India declared it the "Film of the Millennium" and like
Deewar, has been cited by
Indiatimes movies as amongst the
Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films.
[18] In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual
Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called
Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
Bachchan starred in comedies such as
Chupke Chupke (1975) and
Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) and in films such as
Kabhie Kabhie (1976). In 1976, he was once again cast by director
Yash Chopra in his second film,
Kabhi Kabhie,
a romantic tale in which Bachchan starred as a young poet named Amit
Malhotra who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named
Pooja played by actress
Raakhee. The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like
Zanjeer and
Deewar.
The film evoked a favourable response from critics and audiences alike.
Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his
role in the film. In 1977, he won his first
Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in
Amar Akbar Anthony where he played the third lead opposite
Vinod Khanna and
Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest grossing film of that year. His other successes that year include
Parvarish,
Khoon Pasina and
Adalat.
[20]He once again resumed double roles in films such as
Kasme Vaade as Amit and Shankar and
Don playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look alike Vijay. His performance won him his second
Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in
Trishul and
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations.
In 1979, Bachchan starred in
Suhaag which
was the highest earning film of that year. In the same year he also
enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like
Mr. Natwarlal and
Kaala Patthar. Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film
Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred alongside
Rekha. His performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the
Filmfare Best Male Playback Awards. In 1979, he also received Best Actor nomination for
Kaala Patthar (1979) and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the
Raj Khosladirected film
Dostana, in which he starred opposite
Shatrughan Sinha and
Zeenat Aman.
Dostana proved to be the top grossing film of 1980.
[21] In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film
Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and
Rekha. Other successful films of this period include
Ram Balram (1980),
Shaan (1980),
Lawaaris (1981), and
Shakti (1982) which pitted him against legendary actor
Dilip Kumar.
[22]
1982 injury while filming Coolie
On 26 July 1982, while filming
Coolie in
the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal
intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor
Puneet Issar.
[23] Bachchan
was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to
fall onto a table and then on the ground. However as he jumped towards
the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a
splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency
splenectomy and
remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to
death. The public response included prayers in temples and offers to
sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of
well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating.
[24]
Nevertheless, he spent many months recovering and resumed filming later
that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in
1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the
film was a box office success and the top grossing film that year.
[25]
The director,
Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of
Coolie after
Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to
have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived
in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man
who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also,
in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the
critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the
instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident.
[26]
Later, he was diagnosed with
Myasthenia gravis.
His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he
decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became
pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received
and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film
will flop").
[27]
Politics: 1984–87
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of long-time family friend,
Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat of
8th Lok Sabha against
H. N. Bahuguna, former
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and won by one of the highest victory margins in
general election history (68.2% of the vote).
[28] His political career, however, was short-lived: he resigned after three years, calling politics a
cesspool. The resignation followed the implication of Bachchan and his brother in the "
Bofors scandal" by a newspaper, which he vowed to take to court. Bachchan was eventually found not guilty of involvement in the ordeal.
[29]
His old friend,
Amar Singh,
helped him during a financial crisis due to the failure of his company
ABCL. Therefore Bachchan started to support Amar Singh's political
party, the Samajwadi party. Jaya Bachchan joined the
Samajwadi Party and became a
Rajya Sabha member.
[30] Bachchan
has continued to do favors for the Samajwadi party, including
advertisements and political campaigns. These activities have recently
gotten him into trouble again in the Indian courts for false claims
after a previous incident of submission of legal papers by him, stating
that he is a farmer.
[31]
A 15 year press ban against Bachchan was imposed during his peak acting years by
Stardust and
some of the other film magazines. In his own defense, Bachchan claimed
to have banned the press from entering his sets until late 1989.
[32]
Slump and retirement: 1988–1992
In 1988, Bachchan returned to films, playing the title role in
Shahenshah, which was a box office success.
[33] After
the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane
as all of his subsequent films failed at the box office. The 1991 hit
film,
Hum, for which he won his third
Filmfare Best Actor Award,
looked like it might reverse this trend, but the momentum was
short-lived as his string of box office failures continued. Notably,
despite the lack of hits, it was during this period that Bachchan won
his first
National Film Award for Best Actor, for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 film
Agneepath. These years would be the last he would be seen on screen for some time. After the release of
Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. With the exception of the delayed release of
Insaniyat (1994) which was also a box office failure, he did not appear in any new releases for five years.
[34]
Producer and acting comeback 1996–99
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up
Amitabh Bachchan Corporation,
Ltd. (A.B.C.L.) in 1996, with the vision of becoming a 10 billion
rupees (approx 250 million $US) premier entertainment company by the
year 2000.
[citation needed] ABCL's
strategy was to introduce products and services covering the entire
section of the India's entertainment industry. Its operations were
mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes
and video discs, production and marketing of television software,
celebrity and event management.
[citation needed] Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film produced by the company was
Tere Mere Sapne, which failed to do well at the box office but launched the careers of actors such as
Arshad Warsi and South films star
Simran.
[citation needed] ABCL produced a few other films, none of which did well.
[citation needed]
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film
Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though
Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically.
[citation needed] ABCL was the main sponsor of the
1996 Miss World beauty pageant,
Bangalore but
lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding
ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that
ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top level managers,
eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The
company went into administration and was later declared a failed company
by Indian Industries board.
[citation needed] The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay
bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of
Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
[35]
Return to prominence: 2000–present
In 2000, Amitabh Bachchan appeared in
Yash Chopra's box-office hit,
Mohabbatein, directed by
Aditya Chopra. He played a stern, older figure that rivalled the character of
Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third
Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in
Ek Rishtaa: The Bond of Love (2001),
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) and
Baghban (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in
Aks (2001),
Aankhen (2002),
Khakee (2004) and
Dev (2004). One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was
Sanjay Leela Bhansali's
Black (2005).
The film starred Bachchan as an aging teacher of a deaf-blind girl and
followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by
critics and audiences and won him his second
National Film Award for Best Actor and fourth
Filmfare Best Actor Award.
Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety
of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard
advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in
the hit films
Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the
Godfather tribute
Sarkar (2005), and
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). All of them were successful at the box office.
[37][38] His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were
Baabul (2006),
[39] Ekalavya and
Nishabd (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
[40]
In May 2007, two of his films
Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer
Shootout at Lokhandwala were released.
Shootout at Lokhandwala did very well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while
Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and only had average success.
[41] A remake of his biggest hit,
Sholay (1975), entitled
Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception.
[41] The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film,
Rituparno Ghosh's
The Last Lear. The film premiered at the
2007 Toronto International Film Festivalon 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since
Black.
[42] Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film,
Shantaram, directed by
Mira Nair and starring
Hollywood actor
Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008.
[43]The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
[44] Vivek Sharma's
Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a
ghost, was released on 9 May 2008.
Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film
Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box-office.
Paa,
which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as
it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old
son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards
Bachchan's performance. It won him his third
National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth
Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in
Malayalam film through
Kandahar, directed by
Major Ravi and co-starring
Mohanlal.
[45] The film was based on the hijacking incident of the
Indian Airlines Flight 814.
[46] Bachchan did not receive any remuneration for this film.
[47]
Television career
Voice
Awards, honours and recognitions
Apart from
National Film Awards,
Filmfare Awards and
other competitive awards which Bachchan won for his performances
throughout the years, he has been awarded several honours for his
achievements in the Indian film industry. In 1991, he became the first
artist to receive the
Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of
Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as
Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards. The
Government of India awarded him with the
Padma Shri in 1984
[57] and the
Padma Bhushan in 2001.
[58] France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the
Legion of Honour, was conferred upon him by the
French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".
[59] In 2011, actor
Dilip Kumar blogged that
Black should
have been nominated for an Oscar. Kumar added: "If any Indian actor, in
my personal opinion, deserves the world's most coveted award, it is
you."
[60]
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a
BBC Your Millenium online
poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world
will not have heard of [him] ...[but it] is a reflection of the huge
popularity of Indian films."
[61] In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the
Alexandria International Film Festival in
Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema.
[62] Many
other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several
International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award
at the 2010
Asian Film Awards.
[63]
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of
Deauville.
[69] He was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate by the University of
Jhansi, India, in 2004,
[70] the University of Delhi in 2006,
[71] the
De Montfort University in
Leicester, UK, in 2006,
[72] the
Leeds Metropolitan University in
Yorkshire, UK, in 2007,
[73] and the
Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, in 2011.
[74]
On 27 July 2012, Bachchan carried the
Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in London's Southwark.
[75]
Severals books have been written about Bachchan.
Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999,
[76] To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004,
[77]AB: The Legend: (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006
[78]/,
Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006,
[79] Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006,
[80]Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007
[81] and
Bachchanalia in 2009.
[82] Bachchan himself also wrote a book in 2002:
Soul Curry for you and me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
[83] In the early 80s, Bachchan authorized the use of his likeness for the comic book character
Supremoin a series titled
The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan.
[84]
Filmography
Latest films
Producer
Playback singer
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