Bollywood bids farewell to Shammi Kapoor

For instance, Tumsa Nahin Dekha (1957), a Nasir Hussain flick, was not meant for Kapoor. "Devsaab was to do Tumsa.... However, he wriggled out of the project as he was paired opposite a lesserknown actress. So, producer S Mukherjee asked Hussain to audition me," he once told this correspondent. And the rest is history. Tumsa... catapulted Kapoor to stardom. Professor and Ujala confirmed his credentials as a successful actor while Junglee turned him into a youth icon. `Yaahoo` resonated the angst and abandon of the Ovaltine generation of the 1950s.

Yet, Hindi cinema was initially not on Kapoor`s radar. "I wanted to be an engineer. I had opted for science in college," he said, "however, I had to join my father`s (Prithviraj Kapoor`s) theatre group, Prithvi Theatres, as Rajsaab had taken to films." Young Shammi did the eldest brother`s roles in popular Prithvi plays such as Deewar, Pathan and Kalakar. "So, I began to be seen as Raj Kapoor`s clone. Reviewers panned me in Jeevan Jyoti, my first film, for aping Rajsaab".

A princely salary of Rs 50 every month at Prithvi Theatres meant that Kapoor would turn broke by the 10th of every month. "No money to take a girl out for coffee." However, producer A R Kardar, a largehearted man, gave Kapoor a hefty Rs 11,111 as signing amount for Jeevan Jyoti. Kapoor could recall the date, May 12, 1952, when Kardar handed it to him. The young actor bought himself a new car - a Buick convertible.

Kapoor had an excellent sense of rhythm. And he sang well. From Rafi`s Baar baar dekho to Talat Mahmood`s Vahashat-e-dil kyaan karoon (from Kapoor`s film Thokar) to a doha in Brij bhasha, the thespian exhibited his eclectic taste in music. Little wonder, then, that he sang his way to box-office success, thanks to O P Nayyar and Shankar-Jaikishan.

"During Kashmir Ki Kali, Nayyar once called me, Shaktida (Samanta) and Sharmila (Tagore) to his Famous Studio office. Over a bottle of Scotch, Nayyar played 52 compositions for us, all fabulous numbers, and asked me to choose any eight for Kashmir Ki Kali."