He was incidentally in Mumbai on an assignment when Khanna died. Usman, who joined journalism well after Khanna fell into oblivion, had read much about the actor. Writing about Khanna’s performance in one of the movies (I can’t recall which), the reviewer of weekly Screen opined that his performance ranked with the best of Dilip Kumar’s.Īlso read: Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow Khanna starred with Bachchan in a couple of films and the two shared stellar honours in equal measure. Strangely enough, the following year, the lanky young man, who answered to the name of Amitabh Bachchan, was rejected by the same panel.Īmitabh started his career with inconsequential films but made it big when he appeared as ‘an angry young man’ in Zanjeer, a movie scripted (and the character created) by writers Salim-Javed, who had earlier written the story, screenplay and dialogue for at least two of Kaka’s major chart busters. In the first ever Filmfare-United Producers’ Talent Hunt, Kaka was the panel of judges’ first choice. The paperback is also enriched with some rare photographs. Usman spoke to a large number of people who had known Kaka (as Khanna was fondly called) and delved deep into old newspapers and magazines, quoting them profusely. But more importantly, it is rich in content. The book reads like a novel, such is the writer’s narrative skill. The concluding line in the obituary that I wrote for the December 1983 issue of the monthly Herald was: ‘Waheed did not die of a heart attack, he died of a broken heart’.īack to the Indian superstar, the Delhi-based Yasser Usman has authored a real page-turner, Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India’s First Superstar. Waheed Murad is also reported to have sought refuge in an ‘external source’. He thought he remained a superstar till the end. Rajesh Khanna took to the bottle and ultimately died of liver cancer.
His story is reminiscent of the case of Pakistan’s first superstar Waheed Murad, who too had a rise and fall that has no parallel in the cinema of our part of the subcontinent. And then, the tidal wave dissipated in as dramatic a manner as it once had dizzying heights. Widely called the first superstar of India, Rajesh Khanna emerged like a tidal wave which towered above everything else in Bollywood, for a three-year period.įrom 1969 to 1972, he had not one, not two, not even 10, but as many as 15 mega hits to his credit. These data can be approximate and Bollywood fever does not make any claims about the authenticity of the data.Book cover - Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India’s First Superstar Note success ratio calculated considering ATBB blockbuster Super hit hit semi hit above average and average moviesĭisclaimer: The Box Office Data are compiled from various sources and by our own research. Total Number Of Films : 120 (Cameos Excluded) Rajesh Khanna All Films Hit Flop Box Office Analysis
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