Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan (Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan) born on 11 October, 1942 is an Indian film artist. He initially achieved popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry youthful man" of Hindi cinema, and has since materialized in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades.

Bachchan is gazed at as one of the greatest and most prominent actors in the olden times of Indian cinema. Bachchan has won numerous main awards in his career, counting four National Film Awards, three of which are in the Best Actor category, and fourteen Filmfare Awards.

Date Of Birth : October 11, 1942
Place Of Birth: Allahabad, India
Zodiac Sign: Libra

He is the most-nominated performer in any chief acting category at Filmfare, with 37 nominations overall. In toting up to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He also had a period in politics in the 1980's. He has acknowledged both the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan civilian honors from the Indian government.

Early Life
Career
Politics
Television
Awards

Bachchan was born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was a Hindi poet, and his mother, Teji Bachchan, was a Sikh from Faisalabad (now in Pakistan).Bachchan was originally named Inquilaab, inspired from the well-known phrase Inquilab Zindabad, through the Indian independence struggle.

On the other hand, at the hint of fellow poet Sumitranandan Pant, Harivansh Rai altered the name to Amitabh which means, "The light that would never go off." Though his last name was Shrivastava, his father had espoused the pen-name Bachchan (gist child-like in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all his works.

It is with this last name that Amitabh first appeared in films, and, for all civic purposes, it has become the surname of all members of his family unit. Bachchan's father passed away in 2003 and his mother in 2007.

Amitabh is the eldest of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's two sons, the second being Ajitabh. His mother had a keen notice in theatre and had been offered a character in a film, but favored her household duties.

She had some degree of pressure in Bachchan's selection of career because she always persisted that he should take the centre step. He studied in Allahabad's Jnana Prabodhini and Boys' High School (BHS), followed by Nainital's Sherwood College, where he majored in the fine art stream.

He afterward went on to study at Kirori Mal College of the University of Delhi and accomplished a Bachelor of Science degree. In his twenties, Bachchan gave up a career as freight broker for the shipping firm, Bird and Co., based in Calcutta now identified as Kolkata, to track a job in acting.

Bachchan is married to actress Jaya Bhaduri. They have two offsprings, Shweta Nanda and Abhishek Bachchan. Abhishek is also an artist and is wedded to actress Aishwarya Rai.

Early work

Amitabh Bachchan made his film first appearance in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award charming film Bhuvan Shome. From then on he got his initial acting role as one of the seven protagonists in Saat Hindustani, a movie directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Madhu and Jalal Agha. Though the movie was not a monetary success, Bachchan won his initial National Film Award for Best Newcomer.

Parwaana

Anand (1971) tagged on, where he starred beside Rajesh Khanna. Bachchan's character as a doctor with a skeptical view of life garned him his first Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. He then played his first pessimistic role as a besotted lover-turned-murderer in Parwaana (1971).

Reshma Aur Shera

This was pursued by quite a few films counting Reshma Aur Shera (1971). In this time, he made a guest facade in the movie Guddi in which he starred with his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. Then came the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an outward show in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa, directed by S. Ramanathan. Several of his films during this early era did not do well, but that was about to change.

Rise to stardom

Director Prakash Mehra directed him in the chief role for the movie Zanjeer (1973) as Inspector Vijay Khanna. The film was a spiky contrast to the passionately themed films that had commonly leaded it and recognized Amitabh in a new–fangled persona–the "angry youthful man" of Bollywood cinema. He received a Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. Filmfare considers this one of the iconic performances of Bollywood record. The year 1973 was also when he wedded Jaya, and about that time they emerged in quite a lot of films together; not only in Zanjeer but in movies such as Abhimaan which was pursued and was unconfined only a month after their wedding. Afterward, Bachchan played the character of Vikram in the movie Namak Haraam, a social stage show directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee which addresses the ideas of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Best Supporting Actor award.

Kunwara Baap

In 1974, Bachchan made quite a few guest appearances in movies such as Kunwara Baap and Dost, before playing a supporting character in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. The movie, directed and written by Manoj Kumar, addressed matters of honesty in the face of repression and financial and arousing hardship. Bachchan then played the foremost character in film Majboor, unconfined on 6 December 1974, which was a recreate of the Hollywood film Zigzag.

Chupke Chupke

The movie was only a fair success at the box office. In 1975, he starred in a range of film genres from the comedy Chupke Chupke, the felony drama Faraar to the romantic drama Mili. 1975 was the year when he appeared in two movies which are stated as vital in Hindi cinematic history. He starred in the Yash Chopra directed movie Deewaar, differing Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, and Neetu Singh, which earned him a Filmfare Nomination for Best artist.

Deewaar

The movie became a chief hit at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number 4. Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar in the midst of the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. Unconfined on 15 August 1975 was Sholay (meaning flames), which became the uppermost grossing movie of all time in India, earning INR 2,36,45,00,000 Rs equal to US$ 60 million, after altering for inflation.

Film of the Millennium

Bachchan played the task of Jaidev. In 1999, BBC India affirmed it the "Film of the Millennium" and like Deewar, has been cited by Indiatimes movies as among the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that similar year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards honored it with the unique distinction award entitled Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.

Kabhie Kabhie

Bachchan starred in comedies such as Chupke Chupke (1975) and Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) and in movies such as Kabhie Kabhie (1976). In 1976, he was again cast by director Yash Chopra in his second movie, Kabhi Kabhie, a romantic story in which Bachchan starred as a juvenile poet named Amit Malhotra who falls intensely in love with a gorgeous young girl called Pooja played by actress Rakhee Gulzar.

Kasme Vaade

The movie saw him again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his recital in Amar Akbar Anthony where he played the third lead differing Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. In 1978 he starred in all four of the chief grossing films of India in that year. He once again restarted double roles in movies such as Kasme Vaade as Amit and Shankar and Don playing the roles of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look similar to Vijay.

One-man industry

His act won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also performed in Trishul and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar which both earned him more Filmfare Best Actor nominations. He was allocated a "one-man industry" by the French director Francois Truffaut.

Mr. Natwarlal

In 1979, for the first time, Amitabh was requested to use his singing voice for the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred at the side of Rekha. His performance in the movie saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Reward and the Filmfare Best Male Playback Awards. In 1979, he also established Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar (1979) and then went on to be nominated once more in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred contradictory Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama movie Silsila, where he starred next to his wife Jaya and rumoured lover Rekha. Other films of this period comprise Ram Balram (1980), Shaan (1980), Lawaaris (1981), and Shakti (1982) which eroded him alongside well-known actor Dilip Kumar.

Filming Coolie

On 26 July 1982, while shooting for Coolie in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan got a fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a clash scene with co-actor Puneet Issar. Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the movie and one scene was necessary for him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. On the other hand as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a spleenic rupture from which he lost a considerable amount of blood. He required a crisis splenectomy and remained perilously ill in hospital for several months, at times close to death. The civic response incorporated prayers in temples and offers to forfeit limbs to save him, while afterward; there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recovering. On the other hand, he spent many months recuperating and continued filming later on that year after a long period of recuperation. The movie was released in 1983, and partially due to the enormous publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office victory.

Coolie

The director, Manmohan Desai, changed the finishing of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was formerly intended to have been killed off but after the transform of script, the character lived in the conclusion. It would have been unfortunate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off demise in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released movie the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the serious moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the moment of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident. In a while, he was spotted with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both psychologically and physically and he decided to relinquish films and gamble into politics. At this time he became negative, expressing anxiety with how a new film would be established and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").

Producer

Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement era, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (A.B.C.L.) in 1996, with the dream of becoming a 10 billion rupees (approx 250 million $US) premier entertainment company by the year 2000. ABCL's strategy was to begin products and services covering the whole section of the India's entertainment industry. Its operations were mainstream profitable film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, celebrity and event management. Quickly after the company was launched in 1996, the first movie was produced by the company. Tere Mere Sapne botched to do well at the box office but launched the careers of actors such as Arshad Warsi and South film star Simran. ABCL produced a few other movies, none of which did well.

Mrityudata

In 1997, Bachchan afforded to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata tried to reprise Bachchan's previous success as an action hero, the film was a crash both fiscally and decisively. ABCL was the chief sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore but lost millions. The mess and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and a variety of entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top level managers, ultimately led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997.

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan

The business went into administration and was later on declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, controlled Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the awaiting loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, on the other hand, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to Sahara India Finance for hoisting funds for his company. Bachchan cracked to revive his acting career and had standard success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998), and received optimistic reviews for Sooryavansham (1999) but other movies such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office collapses.

Return to prominence:

In 2000, Amitabh Bachchan emerged in Yash Chopra's box-office hit, Mohabbatein, directed by Aditya Chopra. He played a harsh, older figure that challenged the character of Shahrukh Khan. His task won him his third Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. Other hits chased, 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 artist, he sustained to execute in a range of characters, receiving serious praise for his performances in Aks (2001), Aankhen (2002), Khakee (2004) and Dev (2004).

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black

One project that did mainly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005). The movie starred Bachchan as an aging teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His act was commonly praised by critics and viewers and won him his second National Film honor for Best Actor and fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award. Taking lead of this renaissance, Amitabh began endorsing a diversity of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements.

Baabul

In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the hit pictures Bunty Aur Babli (2005), the Godfather tribute Sarkar (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (2006). All of them were victorious at the box office. His afterward releases in 2006 and early 2007 were Baabul (2006), Ekalavya and Nishabd (2007), which botched to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them, were commended by critics.

Cheeni Kum

In May 2007, two of his movies Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did very well at the box office and was affirmed a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and only had standard success. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, unconfined in August of that similar year and proved to be a main commercial failure in accumulation to its poor vital reception.

The Last Lear

The year also marked Bachchan's first look in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear. The movie premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September, 2007. He received encouraging reviews from critics who sleeted his performance as his finest ever since Black. Bachchan was slated to play a sustaining character in his primary international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the escort. The movie was due to start filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's beat, was pushed to September 2008.The movie is at present "shelved" for ever. Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title character as a ghost, was unconfined on 9 May, 2008.

Sarkar Raj

Sarkar Raj, the follow-up of the 2005 film Sarkar, unconfined in June 2008 and received an optimistic retort at the box-office. Paa, which released at the ending of 2009, was an extremely projected project as it saw him playing his own child Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it released to favourable reviews, mainly towards Bachchan's performance. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he first appeared in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The movie was based on the hijacking event of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan did not obtain any wage for this film.

In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and momentarily entered politics in support of long-time folk's friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He challenged Allahabad's seat of 8th Lok Sabha in opposition to H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and won by one of the highest triumph margins in general election history (68.2% of the vote).

His political career, on the other hand, was short-lived: he resigned after three years, calling politics a cesspool. The resignation chased the allegation of Bachchan and his brother in the "Bofors scandal" by a newspaper, which he promised to take to court. Bachchan was ultimately found not guilty of participation in the ordeal.

His old friend, Amar Singh, assisted him during a financial crisis due to the crash of his company ABCL. Therefore Bachchan started to prop up Amar Singh's political party, the Samajwadi party. Jaya Bachchan coupled with the Samajwadi Party and became a Rajya Sabha member.

Bachchan has sustained to do favors for the Samajwadi party, counting on advertisements and political campaigns.

These activities have freshly gotten him into dilemma again in the Indian courts for false claims after an earlier incident of submission of legal papers by him, stating that he is a farmer.

A 15 year press ban not in favor of Bachchan was forced during his peak acting years by Stardust and some of the other movie magazines. In his own resistance, Bachchan asserted to have banned the press from entering his sets until late 1989.

In 1988, Bachchan returned to pictures, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office victory due to the publicity of Bachchan's comeback. After the accomplishment of his comeback film however, his star power began to vanish as all of his ensuing films failed at the box office. The 1991 hit movie Hum, for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, looked like it might overturn this trend, but the momentum was brief as his string of box office failures sustained. Remarkably, in spite of the lack of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor, for his recital as a Mafia don in the 1990 film Agneepath.

These years would be the last he would be seen on screen for some occasion. After the release of Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. In 1994, one of his deferred movies Insaniyat was released but was also a box office failure.

In the race to the Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections, 2007, Bachchan made a movie commending the merits of the Mulayam Singh government. His Samajwadi Party was in flight, and Mayawati came to authority.

On 2 June, 2007 a Faizabad court ruled that he had lawfully acquired agricultural land designated purposely for landless Dalit farmers. It was hypothesized that he may be investigated on allied charges of forgery, as he has allegedly argued he was a farmer. On 19 July 2007, after the outrage broke out, Bachchan surrendered the land gained in Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh and Pune. He wrote to the chief minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, to contribute the lands that were supposedly attained illicitly in Pune. On the other hand, the Lucknow Court has put a hang about on the land donation and said that the position quo on the land be sustained.

On 12 October 2007, Bachchan discarded his claim in reverence of the land at Daulatpur village in Barabanki district. On 11 December 2007, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court gave a fresh receipt to Bachchan in a case pertaining to suspected fraudulent allotment of government land to him in Barabanki district. A single Lucknow bench of Justice said there was no finding that the artist "himself committed any fraud or manipulated any surreptitious entry in the revenue records".

After receiving an affirmative judgment in Barabanki case, Amitabh Bachchan intimated to Maharashtra government that he did not wish to give up his land in Maval tehsil of Pune district.

In the year 2000, Bachchan paced up to host India's edition of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Titled, Kaun Banega Crorepati. As it did in nearly all other countries where it was approved, the program found instant success.

He has hosted all but one of the seasons of the show. Canara Bank withdrew its law suit in opposition to Bachchan in November 2000. Bachchan swarmed KBC till November 2005, when he fell ill.

At that time he was divulged to Lilavati Hospital's ICU once more, to endure surgery for diverticulitis of the small intestine. During the era and that next his recovery, nearly all of his projects were put on hold, together with KBC. He has hosted all but one spell of the show.

Its victory set the juncture for his return to movie popularity. In 2009 Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire in the first question of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? contest "Amitabh Bachchan" was the correct answer to the question "Who was the star of Zanjeer? Feroz Abbas Khan achieved as Amitabh Bachchan in a scene in the movie while Anil Kapoor performed as the host of the competition. Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss in 2009.

Bachchan is well-known for his deep, baritone tone of voice. He has been a teller of tales, a playback singer and presenter for copious programmes. Notorious film director Satyajit Ray was so overwhelmed with Bachchan's voice that he decided to use his accent as commentary in Shatranj Ke Khilari because he could not find a suitable character for him. In 2005, Bachchan has lent his voice to the Oscar-winning French documentary March of the Penguins, directed by Luc Jacquet.

Apart from National Film Honor's, Filmfare Awards and other aggressive awards which Bachchan won for his performances all the way through the years, he has been awarded numerous honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry.

In 1991, he became the initial performer to obtain the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was well-known in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was capped as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards.

The Government of India honored him with the Padma Shri in 1984 and the Padma Bhushan in 2001. France's maximum civilian honor, the Knight of the Legion of Honor, was bestowed upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional profession in the world of cinema and beyond".

In 2011, performer Dilip Kumar blogged that Black should have been nominated for an Oscar. Kumar appended: "If any Indian actor, in my personal opinion, deserves the world's most coveted award, it is you." "

In 1999, Bachchan was selected 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 is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films." In 2001, he was privileged with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in gratitude of his contribution to the globe of cinema.

Various other honours for his accomplishments were granted upon him at numerous International Film Festivals, together with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.

In June 2000, he became the primary living Asian to have been commemorated in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. One more statue was fixed in New York and Hong Kong in 2009.

In 2003, he was awarded with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. He was privileged with an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Jhansi, India, in 2004, the University of Delhi in 2006, the De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, in 2006, the University Brandan Foster by the Leeds Metropolitan University in Yorkshire, UK, in 2007, and the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, in 2011.

Severals books have been printed about Bachchan. Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999, To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004, AB: The Legend: (A Photographer's accolade) in 2006 Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006, Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006, Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and Bachchanalia in 2009. Bachchan himself also wrote a book in 2002: Soul Curry for you and me – An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life. In the beginning 80s, Bachchan approved the use of his likeness for the comic book character Supremo in a succession titled The Adventures of Amitabh Bachchan.