As film writers, and even otherwise, we sometimes tend to use the word “versatile” with a certain amount of unintentional flippance. But Dharmendra — the man, actor, icon, superstar for all seasons and all reasons — was the OG poster-boy of the versatile Hindi film actor. He was a rare Bollywood leading man who could be many things in one. He was the original action man whose punchy dialogues — that literally bayed for blood and covered the gamut of Vishal Bhardwaj’s film titles (“kaminey” to “kuttey”) — were as fiery and feared on screen as his more than dhai-kilo-ke-haath punches. He was the romantic hero whose disarming smile, sparkling eyes and whispered words of love could make the most steely heart melt. He had effortless comic talent, the kind that made you chuckle even when he wasn’t playing to the gallery with a joke.
His presence was unmatched, swallowing up every inch of the 70mm screen he strode into, very often when even some of his equally talented and charismatic contemporaries were in the frame. He was the man you could think of for any role, and he would not just fit right in but also run away with it. His good looks made him a sight for sore eyes even before we knew what ‘Greek God’ meant. Dharmendra was the original, bona fide, multifaceted leading man whose craft on screen was as effortless as the ease with which he wore his superstardom off it.
The screen legend — who passed away on Monday aged 89 after an illness of several weeks — had an illustrious career of more than six decades and 300 films, having carved his name in the annals of Indian cinema as one of its greatest.
A STAR-ACTOR IS BORN
Born Dharmendra Kewal Krishan Deol in Nasrali, a village in Ludhiana, Punjab on December 8, 1935, a young Dharmendra — whose father was the local school headmaster and mother a homemaker — always knew what his calling was — to shine on the silver screen. Participating in a popular film magazine’s nationally organised annual talent hunt brought him to Mumbai (then Bombay), but the promised debut failed to materialise.
However — as has been the trademark of his decades-long career — Dharmendra never gave up. He made his acting debut in 1960 with the romantic drama Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere, which largely went unnoticed at the box office, but led to his maiden success, Shola Aur Shabnam, the following year. Bimal Roy’s Bandini (1963), which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, came to the actor early in his career. The film, Roy’s last outing as director, may have rightly been Nutan’s showcase, but as the sensitive young doctor who works at a prison for women and falls in love with an inmate, Dharmendra’s fine act in this classic heralded the arrival of a new actor-star.
His breakthrough arrived the next year when he co-starred alongside Rajendra Kumar and Saira Banu in Ayee Milan Ki Bela. At a time (and even now), when playing an antagonist could well sound the death knell in the career of many a Bollywood leading man, Dharmendra didn’t hesitate to take on the role of an antagonist. Far from keeping acting offers away, the success of the film — and more importantly, the impact of his performance — ensured that the biggest filmmakers of the time were queueing up in front of his door.
That queue — Haqeeqat to Phool Aur Patthar, Mamta to Anupama, Aaye Din Bahar Ke to Ankhen, Aya Sawan Jhoom Ke to Pyar Hi Pyar — kept swelling all through the 1960s. Even when quite a few of his peers fell by the wayside with the advent of a certain Rajesh Khanna — whose meteoric success quickly dubbed him “The Phenomenon” — Dharmendra continued to build his box-office standing, one silver-jubilee success at a time. In the last year of the same decade, he had Satyakam — Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s social drama, which has unarguably been regarded as one of the finest performances of his career by both fans and critics. The role — that of a righteous young man — required great craftsmanship as well as honesty of emotion, coupled with simplicity, humanity and honesty. Many would agree that no one could have done it better than Dharmendra.
By the time the 1970s arrived, Dharmendra was in the top bracket of Bollywood, commanding big box office. He could have easily bent towards signing only films which paid sure-shot dividends at the ticket window, but the man was an actor first, a star later.
THE DREAM RUN
It was one winner after another — Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Seeta Aur Geeta, Dharamveer, Raja Jani, Dream Girl, Yaadon Ki Baarat, Loafer, Dillagi, Jugnu, Dost — with perhaps the crowning year being 1975. That was the year in which he had over eight releases, with two classics — Chupke Chupke and Sholay — arriving within months of each other. Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s multistarrer comedy Chupke Chupke, a remake of the director’s own Chhadmabeshi, gave us Parimal Tripathi — a professor of botany who slips into a driver’s uniform, not as much to win over his newly-minted in-laws as he does to have some fun at their expense. In a role inhabited by Uttam Kumar in the original, Dharmendra brought in a winning mix of unbridled charm, comic chops and goofy presence. A monkey cap has rarely looked better, before or since, on a leading man. And no one else would have come out unscathed after donning that Gladiator-styled skirt number in 1977’s Dharamveer.
And then, of course, was Sholay. The Ramesh Sippy-directed spaghetti Western that is, by all means, considered one of the greatest films in Indian cinema, was another film featuring a strong ensemble cast, reuniting Dharmendra with Amitabh Bachchan within months of Chupke Chupke. Every frame, every dialogue, every scene, every song, every emotional sequence, every action set piece in Sholay has gone down in the history of cinema. Among them, featuring somewhere close to the top, is Dharmendra’s Veeru, a portrayal which has given Hindi cinema one of its most unforgettable characters. Whether it was swaying from a tank with the drunken warning of suicide, flirting with the feisty taangewaali — played by Hema Malini, in one of their many films together that culminated in romance and marriage off screen — or swinging to Yeh dosti and Holi ke din — Dharmendra was the bomb (as the generation of today would call it). Coming from the affable personality that it did, very few of us grew up being aware that “Kuttey kaminey, main tumhara khoon pee jaunga” or “Basanti, inn kutton ke saamne mat naachna” fell into the PG-13 category. For us, it was Dharmendra simply being Dharmendra.
The ’80s, that wasn’t really Bollywood’s finest decade, saw the focus shift to younger actors as leading men, and it was then that Dharmendra’s action man image — and the title of Bollywood’s He-Man — gained momentum. Not all of the films he did in that phase came in with the promise of quality, but he delivered what mattered the most: entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. In the ’90s and 2000s, the screen appearances dropped, but whatever role Dharmendra featured in — the man who gains his love and quickly loses it in Life in a... Metro, the father-figure gangster in Johnny Gaddaar, the amiable patriarch in Apne, the cool character in Yamla Pagla Deewana (both co-starring sons Sunny and Bobby) — was a cut above the rest, continuing to linger in our collective memories.
His last outing on screen was in Karan Johar’s 2023 film Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, in which he played the man he always was — a lover boy with an affable presence and a golden heart. Dharmendra’s last release will be Ikkis. Opening on Christmas Day, the film brings him together with Agastya Nanda, Amitabh Bachchan’s grandson, in what is the young man’s sophomore outing. This truly is life coming full circle. Before that is the re-release of Sholay, alongside Sr Bachchan, in its restored version. Opening the widest that a Bollywood film has seen on re-release — 1,500 screens on December 12 — it will give audiences, old and new, a chance to relive the magic of the man. Once more.
BEYOND THE SUPERSTAR
But it was not just his time on screen that made Dharmendra a true icon. It was what he did outside it — touching hearts, forging friendships, charming one and all, and being, what would be described in today’s parlance, an all-round great guy. All the tributes that poured in on Monday — from the industry and outside — spoke first and foremost about the happiness he brought to people’s lives by just being himself. “The OG of the Good Man is gone and the world is poorer for it,” actor Kajol best summed up our collective sentiments.
My only brush with Dharmendra in person was more than a decade ago. The veteran was in Calcutta, sons Sunny and Bobby in tow, to promote their comic caper Yamla Pagla Deewana. Dharmendra, then in his mid-70s, wasn’t feeling too well and I was asked to meet him and his sons in a suite at the five-star hotel they were in for the day. It was two hours that remain memorable even to this day. The legend not only made sure I got a good copy, but also wouldn’t take “no” for an answer when I politely declined the offer of lunch. Within minutes, I found myself sitting at the dining table opposite him, his head barely visible above the stack of parathas between us, but his generosity seeping in palpably at every urging that I grab a little more food. I came back with a full stomach — and an even fuller heart — that day. The man was ‘Naram Dharam’ for a reason. And everyone’s ‘Aapka Dharam’. Then, now, and forever.
Which film will you best remember Dharmendra for? Tell t2@abp.in