Happy Birthday, Jeetendra.
Happy Birthday Jeetendra.
Jeetendra (born Ravi Kapoor on 7 April 1942) is an actor, TV and film producer as chairman of the Balaji Telefilms, Balaji Motion Pictures and ALT Entertainment. Famous for his dancing, he was awarded a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Screen Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
Jeetendra’s active acting career spanned the 1960s to the 1990s. Jeetendra got his first major break of his life with V. Shantaram’s Geet Gaya Pattharon Ne (1964). However, it was the film Farz (1967) that served as his stepping stone to success. The tee shirt and white shoes he picked up from a retail store for the Mast Baharon Ka Main Aashiq number in Farz, became his trademark. Farz was followed by films like ‘Caravan’ and ‘Humjoli’, in which Jeetendra had more dance numbers. His vigorous dancing in the films won him the epithet, ‘Jumping Jack of Bollywood’.
He has done nearly 200 films as the main lead, a feat matched by just a handful of his peers since the inception of Hindi cinema. Jeetendra was frequently paired with Sridevi or Jaya Prada for remakes of Telugu films by Rama Rao Tatineni, K. Bapayya and K. Raghavendra Rao; these included Sanjog, Aulad, Majaal, Justice Chaudhry, Mawaali (1983), Himmatwala (1983), Jaani Dushman (1979) and Tohfa (1984). He also did many remakes in Hindi of Krishna’s Telugu movies and had very close association with him. Besides these south Indian remakes, there was a subdued side of Jeetendra whenever he’d worked with the writer/lyricist Gulzar in films like Parichay, Kinara and Khushboo that had several beautifully penned songs like O Majhi Re, Musafir Hoon Yaaron and Naam Gum Jaayega, composed by Rahul Dev Burman and sung by Kishore Kumar.
Besides his frequent pairings with Sridevi and Jaya Prada during the ’80s, Jeetendra’s popular co-stars were Reena Roy, Neetu Singh, Hema Malini, Sulakshana Pandit, Bindiya Goswami, Moushumi Chatterjee, and Rekha.
On Television, he appeared in the TV serial Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi in the role of an old man. He was one of the judges of Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa (Indian Dance Series), an Indian dance competition on Sony Entertainment Television. He was also a judge with Hema Malini of a competition called Dancing Queen.
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