Shammi Kapoor

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ike Professor, China Town and Rajkumar he did give a fine performance. After his wife’s death in the mid 60’s Shammi Kapoor was a broken man. He did films only for the producer’s sake as he had lost his passion for films. But when filmmaker G.P. Sippy (Of Sholay Fane) offered him Brahmachari (1968) he was excited. In this film he is not the typical hero who sings songs around trees and over mountains with the heroine, instead, he is a middle-class press photographer, who takes care of many orphan children. He is the golden golden-hearted man. One day he rescues a pretty woman (Rajshree) from committing suicide as she had been dumped off by his wicket boyfriend (Pran). How Shammi Kapoor helps unite the woman with his boyfriends forms the climax of the film. The movie, as usual, had good music like the hit songs Aajkal Tere Mere Pyar Ke Charche… and Dil Ke Jharokhe Mein….. Shammi Kapoor gave a fabulous performance and for the first time won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award. What’s more, he sidelined thespian Dilip Kumar who was nominated for Aadmi and Sunghursh!

ssion for scenic beauty and hillside folk music hence after shooting the two spent time wandering in the hills and listening to folk music with the locals in Ranikhet. As the movie was a love story with passionate love scenes it added spice to their real-life romance and no sooner they landed in Mumbai, Shammi Kapoor proposed to her for marriage but to his utter surprise Geeta Bali turned down because she was the sole bread earner of the family. When Shammi Kapoor permitted her to work in films after marriage she nodded. Since Shammi Kapoor was aware his family would not allow the wedding hence he eloped and secretly got married at Banganga Temples, near Napean Sea Road in Mumbai. When they went to the temple in the evening the temple was closed and the priest asked them to come the next morning. Hence early in the morning when the temple opened at 4 a.m. the couple reached the temple and performed marriage in typical filmy style with Kapoor applying lipstick instead of traditional sindoor in her maang! The marriage was held on 24th August 1955. Shammi Kapoor's second marriage and romance with actress Mumtaz After Geeta Bali’s unfortunate death due to smallpox in 1965, Shammi Kapoor was shattered. It’s reported for months he had hidden himself in a room and quit shooting but time slowly healed his wounds. During the shooting of Brahmachari (1968), Shammi Kapoor came close to its side heroine Mumtaz, who was slowly making inroads in Bollywood. Filmy gossip magazine were ablaze with their romance but Mumtaz turned the proposal as she was an ambitious actress and wanted to establish herself as a star and later marry. Thus on family insistence, Shammi Kapoor married Neila Devi, who belonged to an aristocratic family of Bhavnagar in Gujarat. The two married on January 27, 1969.