Rajesh Khanna continues to hold the record of having 17 consecutive hits in Bollywood. The record made him the first biggest superstar of Bollywood and earned him the title of ‘King of Romance’ before Shah Rukh Khan even made his debut. The superstar believed that it was hard to maintain one’s image as a romantic hero. However, he also held that romantic heroes would always be remembered in Hindi cinema.
“It’s obvious when you look back, that the romantic heroes are those remembered today, and will always be remembered. In the 30s, there was PC Barua and KL Saigal. After that, we had Ashok Kumar saab and Dilip Kumar saab. Then to some extent, there was Dev Anand and by the 60s, it was my turn. There have been different kinds of romantic heroes, like Dilip Kumar, who had the image of a tragedian and a romantic hero,” he said in an earlier interview.
Rajesh Khanna added that while there have been several heroes in Hindi cinema, not many among them have been romantic heroes as it is ‘extremely difficult to maintain a romantic image’. He said, “But there have been some fortunate people, like me. In romance, it is difficult to create such an individual image. If I have done it, it is only because music, romance, and everything else helped me. Whenever a romantic hero has been created on screen, he has become immortal.”
Rajesh Khanna became an overnight sensation after Shakti Samanta’s romantic musical Aradhana, was released in theatres. Rajesh’s 17 hits include Aradhana, Doli, Bandhan, Ittefaq, Do Raaste, Khamoshi, Safar, The Train, Kati Patang, Sachaa Jhutha, Aan Milo Sajna, Mehboob Ki Mehendi, Choti Bahu, Anand, Andaz, Maryada and Haathi Mere Saathi. In 1971, Rajesh’s success streak broke after Badnam Farishte failed at the box office.
When Rajesh tasted failure, it came crashing in harder than he expected. In an interview alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh admitted that after seven flops, he had breakdown on his rooftop. “I remember that once at three in the morning, I was pretty high on spirits and, suddenly, it was too much for me to stomach because it was my first taste of failure. One after another, seven films had flopped in a row. It was raining, pitch dark and up there alone on my terrace, I lost control,” Rajesh told Movie magazine, in the May 1990 issue.
Rajesh asked Amitabh how he managed to remain untouched by the successes and failures in his career. “I am very surprised, Amit, that success and failure leave you untouched. I mean, I am not a superhuman being. You are not Jesus Christ and I am not Mahatma Gandhi,” he said in the same interview.
Comments
0 comment