Bollywood bad guy, ranjeet will always be remembered for that, the role he mastered for over two decades his name is to be in the top ten villains if you say names of amrish puri, prem chopra, danny or pran. Ranjit was so in demand for villain in the 70’s and 80’s at one time he had 50 to 60’s films in month that were under production or were being shot or being finalized. The roles given to him were villain of course, a rapist, kidnapper.
HIs real name is ranjit bedi born in amritsar punjab. Ranjeet had awalys wanted to be a fighter pilot, but he dimissed for the national defence academy. Ranjit found a another hobby and that was hindi films. Ranjit decided to do some roles on tv, some punjabi plays and moved to mumbai.
Ranjits began his career from the film sawan bhadon, but it was his next film sharmilee that he became a succesfull villain with, people just loved him in the film sharmilee. Kadar khan was his co star in a lot of films. NExt film was reshma aur shera, another hit movie for ranjeet.
A movie could have been bad but ranjit as villain was always superb with flop films like dost aur dushamn, bhai ho tu aisa, naya nasha, keemat, dhamkee, me romeo ranjit had become a regular villain for hindi films. Before ranjit jeevan and pran were the regular villains, but ranjit was a very different villain from other, one thing I always loved was he always wore the most gowdy outfits with two buttons left, open at the top and his hairstyle remained the same for each films.
Next good performance was in the film imtihaan staring vinod khanna, ranjeet plays a college student who sells drugs in around the campus area and try to spoil other kids, it’s a great movie where vinod khanna plays a teacher. In the film khootey sikkay he doesn’t play villain he plays a good guy name salim who fights villains to help some village people.
Next is one of my favorite of ranjit in the film amar akbar anthony where he plays a stepbrother of shabana azmi. I also liked his performance in the film vishwanath where he plays a killer name khookha and his performance in khoon pasina was also award worthy where he played a bad guy named raghu. IN the film mukkadar ka sikander he plays guy name j.d along with amjad khan who plays dilawar as I can say the movie is worth a watch because of amitabh, amjad khan and ranjeet performance.
KAtvaye, suhaag, the burning train, lahoo ke do rang, rocky, laawaris, namak halaal, hero, sharaabi, geraftaar, imandaar, rajput were all hits movies where ranjit played villains in.
Ranjeet got fed up with villain roles in the late 80’s and decided not to work as villain anymore, because everywhere he went people thought of him as villain in real life as well, women were uncomfartable seeing ranjit there. IN the early 90’s ranjit went and produced two films one was called karnama starring vinod khanna and the other one was called gazab tamasha starring rahul roy which were a total disaster at the box office.
For a change ranjit went into t.v dramas junoon in which he plays sher khan, his performance in the serial baat ban jaaye was also appreciated. It’s good to see ranjit coming back to the industry doing some good roles in films like humko dewana kar gaye, saawan and bunty aur babli. He also has a another film coming out called jaan ki baazi with sanjay dutt and danny.
My favorite performances of ranjit has to be in films like mukkadar ka sikander, khoon pasina, khootey sikkay, laawaris, amar akbar anthony.
Overall he has worked in 300 hindi films I think most by an actor.