A Great Movie Actor



A Great Movie Actor

BOMBAY, Dec 10: One of the all time greats of Indian cinema, Ashok Kumar, or Dadamoni as those in Bollywood affectionately referred him to, has died aged 90. Kumar had an inimitable acting style and dialogue delivery that gave pleasure to his countless fans in a career, which spanned more than seven decades.

Kumar died of heart failure at his residence in the central Bombay on Monday, December 10, 2001. Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt said his death marked the end of an era.

Born in 1911, Ashok Kumar was the screen name of Kumudlal Kanjilal Ganguly who studied law in Calcutta. He joined a film company - Bombay Talkies – in the early 1930s as a laboratory assistant and would have perhaps retired as one if he was not noticed by a leading actress of the time, Devika Rani. His first film - Jeevan Naiya - was released in 1936 where he was paired against Devika Rani. With his second film, Acchut Kanya, Kumar became a well-known face. That was the era of silent films and Ashok Kumar acted with Devika Rani in a number of other films as well in the late 1930s.

He paired with Leela Chitnis, another leading actress of the time, in films like Kangan (1939), Bandhan (1940) and Jhoola (1941). Some of his most memorable performances in the lead role came in films like Mahal, Bandini, Aarti, Gumrah, Kanoon and Mamta. It did not take him long to become a star. Some of the films that he made went on to become super hits and took him to the top of the chart in a very short span of time. Kismet was one of the biggest hits of all times and the image of the cigarette-smoking anti-hero was probably the first in the Hollywood noir style. He acted in Khwaja Ahmed Abbas's Naya Sansaar and then in Mehboob's Humayun and Afsana to further establishes his credentials as an actor. In the 1960s, Kumar settled down to play character roles and gave his fans and film lovers memorable performances in films like Jewel Thief, Aashirwad, Victoria No 203 and Khoobsurat.

He made his debut on the small screen in the 1980's when he began anchoring the hugely popular family soap, Hum Log. Kumar came from a family of film artistes. His younger brother Kishore Kumar was himself a producer-director-actor-playback singer and music composer of exceptional talent while another brother Anup Kumar was also an actor. Ashok Kumar was awarded the Indian Government's highest award for contribution to cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke award.

Considering that many of the other stalwarts who had established the Indian cinema had passed away long ago, his mere presence was a link between the old and the new. His birth in Bihar in 1911 almost coincided with the birth of Indian cinema and he joined it formally when it was coming of age in the 1930s. He saw it climax and now as he has signed of it has entered an era far beyond the physical boundaries of India. [Source: BBC/PTI]