Golden Era of Bollywood: Shashi Kapoor-The Great Romantic Hero

Sunday 18 March 2018

Shashi Kapoor-The Great Romantic Hero

Shashi Kapoor’s real romance with wife Kendal, an English actor, remains one of Bollywood’d most enduring love stories.He was considered a great romantic hero next to Dev Anand. Though his brother Shammi Kapoor too considered as a great romantic hero of the 60s but he was one of the first leading men in Bollywood to romance his leading ladies in spectacular backdrops like Shimla and Kashmir.
Some of his most popular romantic songs were shot at marvelous locations which sprung to life with his stellar performances and unmatched charm.The first film which made him the successful romantic hero image was Jab Jab Phool Khile starring Nanda. Following that they worked together in many films.

Though he did the grinning, romantic-hero parts very well, he showed an unexpected flair for comedy, and had a reassuring integrity in serious, dramatic scenes, he could seem a bit one-dimensional in commercial films.
He was also the first actor to work in Western films, starring in several Merchant Ivory productions, a company run by Ismail Merchant and James Ivory; the outings included The Householder (1963), Shakespeare Wallah (1965), Bombay Talkie (1970) and Heat and Dust (1982) in which he co-starred with his wife Jennifer Kendal, The Deceivers (1988) and Side Streets (1998).

He set up Prithvi Theatre, he also set up his own production house, Film Valas, which produced critically acclaimed films such as Junoon (1978), Kalyug (1981), 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), Vijeta (1982) and Utsav (1984), much later, in 1991 he directed his first Hindi film, a fantasy titled Ajooba which had his co-star Bachchan and nephew Rishi Kapoor in the lead. Kapoor was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2011 and the Dadasaheb Phalke award in 2015.
He died on December 4, 2017 at the age of 79 .He is survived by two sons, Kunal and Karan, and a daughter, Sanjana, who takes care of the Prithvi Theatre.