Shammi Kapoor was one such actor who undoubtedly was a livewire in Bollywood and that was the sole reason of him being referred to as the Elvis Presley of India.
Whenever we hear his name, the first expression comes to our mind is Yahoooo! Yes, he was the original ‘Yahoooo man of India’.
Indian cinemas would not have been the same without this dynamic hero who was born on Wednesday.
So, on the occasion of his birthday, NewsMobile brings you a list of unknown facts about this legendary actor.
Unlike the current generation, Shammi Kapoor was not launched as a star kid by his superstar father Prithviraj Kapoor. He struggled for years to carve his niche in Bollywood. He began his career working for his father’s Prithvi Theatre as a junior artiste at a monthly salary of Rs 50. Like any other employee, he went for a job change after four years of experience while drawing a salary of Rs 300 in 1952.
Shammi was always ahead of the times be it his flair for technology or his directorial ventures. He was one of the first celebrities to have mastered the internet. He was the Founder and Chairman of Internet Users Community of India and put in a lot of efforts to enable the setting up of Ethical Hackers Association. The actor himself maintained a website dedicated to the Kapoor family and updated information about all the members of the family from the eldest to the youngest. He also kept in touch with his fans through the site.
Unlike the present scenario, film actors in ’60s and ’70s did not perform live on stage and hesitated before taking on the dance floor with a bevy of supporting dancers in the background. Never the one to shy away from breaking conventions, Shammi took to the dance floor with a vengeance. His moves were often referred to as ‘gardan tod’ (neck-breaking). He never needed a choreographer, preferring to make his own dance steps along the way.
Shammi Kapoor reached the pinnacle of success with several blockbuster films that he delivered over the decades. After his heydays were long past, the actor still kept acting in films, choosing character roles over mainstream ones. After playing a romantic hero for the last time in Andaz in 1971, Shammi was seen in a different avatar in films like Zameer,Hero, Vidhaata, Hukumat, Batwara, Tahalka, Chamatkar, Namak and Prem Granth.
Change is the essence of life and Shammi Kapoor was not averse to it. Shammi, who starred opposite Saira Banu in her debut film Junglee in 1961 and romanced her in Bluff Master, went on to play her father a decade later in Zameer in 1974. Not only this, he also played fifteen years younger Amitabh Bachchan’s father in Parvarish.