When Amitabh Bachchan was rejected and Rajesh Khanna was declared a winner

Rajesh Khanna is considered the first superstar of Bollywood. He enjoyed an adulation and popularity among female fans that is unmatched even today. It was the entry of Amitabh Bachchan as the angry young man that shook the Aradhana actor from the pedestal of superstardom and he could never regain it ever.

But years before Amitabh Bachchan became a Bollywood actor he had applied for a talent hunt contest for which Rajesh Khanna was selected but Big B’s application was rejected. After the death of Kaka in 2012, the Zanjeer actor in his blog post recalled the first time he became acquainted with the name Rajesh Khanna.

It was when the Filmfare-Madhuri Talent Contest declared Rajesh Khanna as the winner whereas Vinod Mehra was declared the runner-up. However, in the next year when Amitabh Bachchan applied for this contest, he was considered ineligible. Much to the disappointment of the Talent Contest judges, in just a few years this rejected candidate became the biggest superstar of Bollywood.

In his blog post, the Kalki 2898 AD actor recalled, “One look at Rajesh Khanna made me realise that with people like him around, there would be little chance of opportunity for me, in this new profession!” When he met Rajesh Khanna for the first time Amitabh believed it to be a miracle and a blessing that gave him a reverse respect.

He wrote, “The moment that anyone came to know that I was working with the Rajesh Khanna, my importance grew. And I gloated in its wake.”

Unlike the popular opinion that Kaka was weird and arrogant, Amitabh Bachchan called him a simple and quiet man and recalled, “He would attract many visitors on set and was continuously surrounded by them, Hrishi-da permitting! The frenzy and the following he garnered was a sight to behold. In the 1970 era, his fans came from Spain to meet him, and a most unheard of occurrence then.”