The one thing i’ve always liked about shammi kapoor is the way he dances, I started to like his dancing in the movie bramchari.
Shammi kapoor was born in 1931 as shamsher rajkapoor. The son of prithiviraj kapoor and younger brother of raj kapoor. Shammi kapoor was employed in his father’s theathre from 1948 0 1952. His entry into the filmi world in 1953 was a disaster. Though he had worked with the major actress of that time madhubala, suraiya, geetabali and nutan his career wasn’t taking off at all. He was considered one of the worst actors in 1956.
He married actress geeta bali in 1955. In 1957 a another movies came in his hands called tumsa nahin dekha. Shammi kapoor shaved his moustache that he had in the previous movies and cut his hair in the famous duckstyle hairstyle of t he 50’. o.p nayyars music with foot tapping numbers like , tumsa nahin dekha, yun tu humne lakhon haseen dekhe hai, aayie hai door se milne hazoor semade a star out of shammi kapoor.
The new hip image was further reinforced in his next movie dil deke dekho in 1959 and yahoo junglee in 1961 saw him become the definite icon of the 60’s, The rebel star rebelling against the stars like raj kapoor, dev anand and dilip kumar of that time. Junglee elevated shammi kapoor to cult status. kashmir and junglee song had ruled the 60’s. Junglee saw shammi kapoor give the remarkble energetic performance as the rich foreign returned bachelor who is in love with a kashmiri girl saira bano. In fact shammi kapoor often played a spoiled rich guy who not only wins the girl but also gets gang rackets or family fueds all of wihch were solved by beating the villain in the end.
He wore leathre jackets tee shirts at a time when tee shirts weren’t even wored in bollywood. After the success of junglee it apeared that shammi wouldn’t go wrong at the box office. Hits after hits followed dil tera deeewana, raj kumar, jaanwar, proferssor and tessri manzil all were hits at the box office. new heroines like aasha parekh, sharmila tagore, saira bano were already well known in bengali cinema were brought into his movies they were successfull. Critics tended to ignore his films even though he had the whole india winging to his tune. But given the chance as in movie bramchari he surprised even the critics a man who looked after the abadoned children the film besides be a hit at the box ofice won him the best actor award as well.
Shammi kapoor dancing ability and his hairstyles was also due to hummbale and catchy songs like , suku suku, aa gulbadanm govind ala re, deewana hua badal, tumne pukara hum chale aaye, o mere sona re, tumse aacha kaun, hai na bolo bolo , aaj kal tere mere pyar ke charche, lal chadi maidan mein khadi are remember and even hummed today.
HIs wife geeta bali died in 1965, then he married neela devi the daughter of a mahahraja. Increasing age and gainging weightand the rajesh khanna wave that swept the nation in 1969 saw shammi kapoor bow down as the leading man. Shammi kapoor then shifted to playing bearded heavy weight characters. he had also directed movies like bandalbaaz and manorajan. At the last I saw shammi kapooor in the movie janam samjha karo in 2001 starring salmank and urmila he didn’t look like the old shammi kapoor at all, he gained so much weight then before too. Today he is a well known computer bufff and is the chairman of the internet users club of india. He named the best dancing bollywood hero ever seen in hindi films.