Golden Era of Bollywood: Happy 75th Birthday Jeetendra -The Jumping Jack

Jeetendra was born Ravi Kapoor in Amritsar, Punjab in 1942.His father was in Immitation Jwellery business and used to supply jwellery to film industry. While supplying jewellery to V. Shantaram, he was cast as Sandhya's double in the 1959 movie "Navrang."
He got his first big break when Shantaram cast him as hero in Geet Gaya Pattharon Ne (1964). Since then, he has appeared in almost 200 films.

He came into the spotlight in 1967 with Ravikant Nagaich's Farz, which went on to become a golden jubilee success. The tee shirt and white shoes he picked up from a retail store for the "Mast Baharon Ka Main Aashiq" number in Farz (sung by legendary Singer Mohd Rafi) became his trademark. His vigorous dancing in the films won him the epithet, ‘Jumping Jack of Bollywood.
After the success of Farz he gave many Silver jubilee hits like Aulad,Mere Huzoor,Dharti Kahe Pukarke,,Jeene Ki Raah,Jigri Dost,Waris,Khilona,Humjoli and Carvan

He has done nearly 200 films as the main lead, a feat matched by just a handful of his peers since the inception of Hindi cinema. Initially Jeetendra was frequently paired with Mumtaz,Hema Malini(12 films),Rekha(24 films),Latter on with Sridevi(14 films) or Jaya Prada(21films) for remakes of Telugu films by Rama Rao Tatineni, K. Bapayya and K. Raghavendra Rao; these included Sanjog, Aulad, Majaal, Justice Chaudhry, Mawaali (1983), Himmatwala (1983), Jaani Dushman (1979) and Tohfa (1984). He also did many remakes in Hindi of Krishna's Telugu movies and had very close association with him.

Besides these south Indian remakes, there was a subdued side of Jeetendra whenever he'd worked with the writer/lyricist Gulzar in films like Parichay, Kinara and Khushboo that had several beautifully penned songs like O Majhi Re, Musafir Hoon Yaaron and Naam Gum Jaayega, composed by Rahul Dev Burman and sung by Kishore Kumar.
His name was involved with his earlier heroines. In her authorized biography, Hema Malini claimed that they almost got married, but she backed out at the last moment.Though Jeetendra was in love with his girl friend Shobha Sippy whom he knew for many years decided to marry her after the release of Bidaai on October 18, 1974,They have two children from their marriage. Their daughter, Ekta Kapoor, runs Balaji Telefilms and their son Tusshar Kapoor is also an actor.

Jeetendra never won the Filmfare Award as an Actor but got Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.He is also recipient of Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Award by Govt of India in 2007