Dharmendra, Hindi cinema’s eternal leading man who defied monotony

Dharmendra always had Devdas in his sights. He was a lad of 20 when his idol Dilip Kumar played the ill-fated eponymous lover. He saw the 1955 Bimal Roy film repeatedly, preparing himself mentally for the role.

In the mid-1970s, Gulzar cast Dharmendra against type in his version of Devdas. The poet-lyricist-filmmaker knew, and Dharmendra had demonstrated often enough, that there was more to him than just action.

An incredibly handsome Punjabi youth who arrived in Bombay to give stardom a shot, Dharmendra weathered a few false starts before he starred in more than 300 films in a 65-year career.

Sadly, Devdas wasn’t one of them. The project was shelved after Gulzar shot a few reels. But, if nothing else, the film that never saw the light of day proved that Dharmendra was a director’s actor the era’s best filmmakers could readily repose faith in.

Also Read: The “Devdas” starring Dharmendra, Hema Malini that Bollywood missed

Remoulding masculinity

In Phool Aur Patthar, the 1966 drama that forged Dharmendra’s tough-guy screen persona, he was a criminal capable of kindness to strangers. In a brief sequence, his character takes his shirt off and uses it to cover an old lady shivering in the cold.

That movie moment was a watershed. It defined Dharmendra’s brand of virility: aggressive masculinity tempered with a benign streak. While that was the keystone of Dharmendra’s image, he frequently and successfully ventured beyond its boundaries.

As an actor, he straddled a wide gamut — from rugged and macho to romantic and gentle, from comic to caustic, from emotionally charged to psychologically scarred, from playful to profound. He flitted effortlessly between irrepressible and vulnerable, smouldering and subdued, without ever alienating his core constituency.

Media shy but newsworthy

Dharmendra, a magnetic but media-shy luminary who steadfastly resisted interviews, floated back and forth between Bimal Roy, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Chetan Anand and Rajinder Singh Bedi (who directed him in 1973’s Phagun, in which he had a cameo) on the one hand, and Prakash Mehra (Samadhi), Manmohan Desai (Dharam-Veer) and Nasir Hussain (Yaadon Ki Baarat) on the other.

Dharmendra in a still from ‘Samadhi’ (1972).

He reigned supreme from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, an eventful period during which his personal life provided constant grist to the rumour mill, leading to run-ins with persistent gossip columnists.

Popular, reliable, durable

In the late 1990s, he turned to supporting roles, beginning with Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya (1998). A decade on, he was in two commercially successful films, Anurag Basu’s quirky urban drama Life in a… Metro (2007) and Sriram Raghavan’s neo-noir thriller Johnny Gaddar (2007).

Dharmendra’s popularity was as enormous as it was durable. Neither the terrific triumvirate of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand who preceded him nor the all-conquering duo of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan who altered 1970s Hindi cinema could influence the course of his stardom or dim its lustre.

Rajesh Khanna shot to the top in 1969 with two massive hits, Aradhana and Do Raaste. Many male stars of the era were swept away. Not Dharmendra. He continued his stellar run.

His films during this phase ranged from genteel dramas directed by Asit Sen and Hrishikesh Mukherjee to crowd-pleasers helmed by Arjun Hingorani, who launched the actor in Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere (1960) and then in the 1970s cast him in every single film he made.

Dharmendra with Mala Sinha in his debut Hindi film Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere (1960).

Bachchan, who stormed the industry with Zanjeer (1973) and Deewaar (1975), threatened to scupper many careers. Dharmendra stood firm against the angry young man blitzkrieg.

A pair to remember

In fact, the story goes that Dharmendra recommended Bachchan to Ramesh Sippy for 1975’s biggest hit, Sholay. The same year, the two actors joined forces in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Chupke Chupke, too. The two films had nothing in common but Dharmendra, like Bachchan, was perfectly at ease in both.

His pairing with Hema Malini, who was to become his second wife in 1980, was frequent but there was never a phase in Dharmendra’s professional life when he was in danger of succumbing to monotony in terms of either the films he chose or the co-actors he worked with.

Quiet but lasting entry

Before Phool Aur Patthar turned him into a major star, Dharmendra had already made his presence felt in Bimal Roy’s Bandini (1963) and Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat (1964).

Dharmendra with Nutan in Bimal Roy’s Bandini (1963).

Surprisingly for a man from the land of the bhangra, Dharmendra possessed limited dancing skills. His two left feet did not dent his box-office clout. If anything, it added a dimension to his jatt yamla pagla deewana image that yelled loud and clear: “tough guys don’t dance”.

Awards eluded him during his active years as a leading man but a couple of honours were eventually conferred upon him — a Padma Bhushan in 2012 and a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

The year that Phool Aur Patthar, co-starring Meena Kumari, hit the screen, Dharmendra had two other memorable releases — Asit Sen’s Mamta, with Suchitra Sen and Ashok Kumar, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anupama, with Sharmila Tagore.

Before the end of the decade, he delivered what ranks among his best screen performances ever as an idealistic young man in Satyakam, featuring Sharmila and directed by Mukherjee.

The roaring Seventies

In the 1970s, his career soared into the stratosphere with films like Raj Khosla’s Mera Gaon Mera Desh, which tapped into his action star credentials, and Ramesh Sippy’s Seeta Aur Geeta.

In Guddi (1971), Mukherjee cast Dharmendra as himself in a story of a middle-class schoolgirl (debutante Jaya Bhaduri) smitten by the matinee idol. On cue, Dharmendra delivered an uninterrupted string of hits in 1972 and 1973.

The purple patch began with Seeta Aur Geeta and Raja Jani and culminated with money-spinners like Loafer, Jugnu, Jheel Ke Us Paar, Blackmail and Yaadon Ki Baaraat (all in 1973).

Also Read: In Pictures — Iconic moments from Dharmendra’s life

Anchored in his roots

No matter how high he rose, Dharmendra never lost touch with his roots, an attribute that shone through in his best screen performances, no matter who he was playing — a botany professor in Chupke Chupke, a Sanskrit lecturer in Dillagi or a fictionalised avatar of a real-life war hero in Haqeeqat.

Dharmendra often wrote poetry and read it on camera for his fans. His lines reflected the wisdom of a man who had lived a full life as well as manifested the rustic simplicity and emotional directness of his thoughts.

Dharmendra is gone but he is not done yet. His final film, Ikkis, directed by Sriram Raghavan, is scheduled for release on December 25. And that certainly isn’t all. A success story such as his segues into showbiz folklore. It never ends. It lives on in the imprint it leaves.

The writer is a New Delhi-based film critic.