Two Great Bollywood Stars Born on the Same Date

 

Guru Dutt and Sanjeev Kumar,  the two legendary actors of Bollywood were born on 9th July of 1925 and 1938 respectively. What a coincidence that both died prematurely. Both started their career early in their life. Guru Dutt got a job under a three-year contract with the Prabhat Film Company in Pune when he was just nineteen years of age. Sanjeev Kumar also started his acting career as a stage actor, starting with IPTA in Bombay and later joining the Indian National Theatre. At the age of 22, he played an old man in a play, an adaptation of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. In the following year, in the play Damru directed by AK Hangal, he again played the role of a 60-year-old with six children.

Guru Dutt acted in a small role as Sri Krishna in Chand in 1944. In 1945, he acted as well as assisted director Vishram Bedekar in Lakhrani, and in 1946 he worked as an assistant director and choreographed dances for P.L. Santoshi's film, Hum Ek Hain.. Sanjeev Kumar made his film debut with a small role in Hum Hindustani in 1960.

Even though Guru Dutt and Sanjeev Kumar never worked together, they do share a curious link – K Asif’s Love And God. The film had a long and troubled production history with shooting starting in 1963 with Guru Dutt as Kais and Nimmi as Laila. However Guru Dutt's sudden death in 1964 left the film incomplete and it was shelved. Then, Asif recast Sanjeev Kumar as Kais and resumed production of the film in 1970. Unfortunately, the director K. Asif died on 9 March 1971 at the age of 48/49 and the film was once again left incomplete. Fifteen years later, Asif's senior widow Akhtar Asif decided to release the incomplete film with the help of producer-director-distributor K. C. Bokadia. In a few months, they managed to salvage some usable portions of the incomplete film from three different studios and pieced them together. This cut-paste incomplete version was finally released on 27 May 1986. By the time of the film's release, several of the film's cast members had died, including its leading actor Sanjeev Kumar, who died in 1985.

Guru Dutt in Love &  God

Sanjeev Kumar in Love &  God

Another similarity both had was their love life, both had a troubled love affair. Though Guru Dutt was married to Geeta Roy but fell in love with Waheeda Rehman. Sanjeev Kumar proposed to Hema Malini in 1973 and they remained in touch even after he suffered his first heart attack in 1976. Later an actress Sulakshana Pandit started liking him and proposed for marriage, but both of them remained unmarried. Kumar refused to marry her, as a result of which Sulakshana vowed to never marry anyone.

Their turbulent, tragic, and unlucky-in-love personas haunted the two stars throughout their life, one went in depression and comitted suicide and the other died of heart attack.

Songs of Guru Dutt

Song of Aar Paar 1954

Song of Mr & Mrs 55 1955

Song of Pyasa1957

Song of Kaagaz Ke Phool 1959

Song of Chaudhvin Ka Chand 1960

Songs of Sanjeev Kumar

Song of Anokhi Raat 1968

Song of Raja Aur Runk 1968

Song of Khilona 1970

Song of Seeta Aur Geeta 1972

Song of Manchali 1973

Song of Aandhi 1975