Background and career
Muhammad Yusuf Khan (11 December 1922 – 7 July 2021), known professionally as Dilip Kumar (Hindustani: [d̪ɪliːp kʊmɑːɾ]), was an Indian actor, writer and film producer best known for his work in Hindi cinema. Credited with pioneering method acting in Hindi cinema, he dominated Indian cinema from the 1950s throughout the 1960s and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian Cinema. In a career spanning over five decades, Kumar worked in 66 released films. He debuted as an actor in the film Jwar Bhata (1944), produced by Bombay Talkies. Following a series of unsuccessful ventures, he had his first box office hit in Jugnu (1947). He consistently starred in top–grossing Indian films from the late-1940s to the 1960s, such as Shaheed, Andaz, Babul, Deedar, Aan, Uran Khatola, Insaniyat, Azaad, Naya Daur, Madhumati, Paigham, Kohinoor, Mughal-E-Azam, Gunga Jumna and Ram Aur Shyam. Some of his most acclaimed performances, include Nadiya Ke Paar, Shabnam, Jogan, Tarana, Daag, Sangdil, Shikast, Footpath, Amar, Devdas, Musafir, Yahudi, Leader, Aadmi and Sunghursh. The 1970s saw Kumar's career take a downturn, with only one major success, Gopi (1970). In 1976, he went on a brief hiatus from film performances and returned with the revolutionary drama Kranti (1981), which was the highest-grossing Indian film of the year. He continued to play leading roles in films such as Vidhaata (1982), Karma (1986), and Saudagar (1991). His last on-screen appearance was in the commercially unsuccessful Qila (1998), which saw him in a dual role. Kumar later served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament, from 2000 to 2006. Kumar's personal life was the subject of much media attention; however, he himself had largely avoided media limelight and endorsements. He was in a long-term relationship with actress and frequent co-star Madhubala that ended after the Naya Daur court case in 1957. He married actress Saira Banu in 1966 and resided in Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai, until his death in 2021. For his contributions to film, the Government of India awarded him with the Padma Bhushan in 1991 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015, the country's third and second-highest civilian awards respectively. He was also awarded India's highest accolade in the field of cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994. In 1998, the Government of Pakistan conferred Kumar with Nishan-e-Imtiaz, their highest civilian decoration, making him the only Indian to have received the honour. The house that Kumar grew up in, located in Peshawar, was declared a national heritage monument in 2014 by the Pakistani government.
Dilip Kumar was born Muhammad Yusuf Khan on 11 December 1922, into a Hindko-speaking Hindkowan Awan Muslim family in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar neighbourhood of Peshawar, a city in the North-West Frontier Province of British India. He was one of the twelve children of Lala Ghulam Sarwar Ali Khan (1890–5 March 1950) and his wife Ayesha Bibi (1897–27 August 1948). His father was a fruit merchant. Khan studied at the Barnes School in Deolali (now in Maharashtra), where his father owned orchards. He grew up in the same neighbourhood in Peshawar as Raj Kapoor, his childhood friend, and later his colleague in the film industry. In 1940, he moved to Pune and set up a dry fruit supply shop and a canteen. Despite hailing from Peshawar, Khan's family decided to remain in Bombay following the Partition of India in 1947. Khan never acted under his birth name, debuting in Jwar Bhata in 1944 under the stage name Dilip Kumar. In his autobiography, Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow, he wrote that the name was a suggestion from Devika Rani, who was one of the producers on Jwar Bhata. In an interview in 1970, he said that he adopted this name out of fear of his father, who never approved of his acting career because of the general poor image of cinema back then.
Kumar's first film was Jwar Bhata in 1944, which went unnoticed. After two more unsuccessful films, it was his fourth film Jugnu (1947), in which he starred alongside Noor Jehan, that became his first major hit at the box office. His next major hits were the 1948 films Shaheed and Mela. Both Jugnu and Shaheed were the highest grossing Hindi films of their respective year of release. He got his breakthrough role as an actor in 1949 with Mehboob Khan's Andaz, in which he starred alongside Raj Kapoor and Nargis. At the time of its release, Andaz was the highest-grossing Indian film ever, until its record was broken by Kapoor's Barsaat that same year. Shabnam was another box office hit that was also released in 1949.
The 1950s was Kumar's most successful and prolific decade with him playing leading roles in several box office hits such as Jogan (1950), Babul (1950), Deedar (1951), Tarana (1951), Daag (1952), Aan (1952), Uran Khatola (1955), Insaniyat (1955), Devdas (1955), Naya Daur (1957), Yahudi (1958), Madhumati (1958) and Paigham (1959). He also provided the background narration for Angaray (1954) which starred his brother Nasir Khan as the main lead, albeit uncredited. During this period, Kumar formed popular on-screen pairings with many of the top actresses at the time including Vyjayanthimala, Madhubala, Nargis, Nimmi, Meena Kumari and Kamini Kaushal. Together with fellow contemporaries Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand, he dominated the 1950s which is considered a part of the golden era of Hindi cinema. Though the three did not appear in any one film together, Kumar did appear with Raj Kapoor in Andaz (1949) and Dev Anand in Insaniyat (1955). Several of his films established his screen image as the "Tragedy King". Kumar briefly suffered from depression due to portraying many tragic roles and on the advice of his psychiatrist, he also took on light-hearted roles. Mehboob Khan's big-budget 1952 swashbuckling musical Aan featured him in one of his first lighter roles and marked his first film to be shot in technicolor. Aan was the first Indian film to have a wide release across Europe with a lavish premiere in London. Aan was the highest-grossing Indian film ever at the time, domestically and overseas. He had further success with lighter roles as a thief in the hit comedy Azaad (1955). In 1957, he appeared in the third segment of the anthology film Musafir, which was the directorial debut of Hrishikesh Mukherjee. He also did playback singing for a song in the film with Lata Mangeshkar. By this time, he had developed his distinct, signature style of understated acting of mumbling his dialogues while giving myriad expressions and meanings to lines that his characters uttered. He was the first actor to win the Filmfare Best Actor Award (for Daag) and went on to win it a further seven times. 9 of his 21 films in the 1950s were ranked in the Top 30 highest-grossing films of the decade. In the 1950s, Kumar became the first Indian actor to charge 1.5 lakh per film. (equal to 60 cr or above of 2024) In 1960, he portrayed Prince Salim in K. Asif's big-budget epic historical film Mughal-e-Azam, which was the highest-grossing film in Indian film history for 15 years until it was surpassed by the 1975 film Sholay. Mughal-e-Azam was in the making for over a decade and was originally shot in black and white, with only two songs and the climax scenes shot in colour. 44 years after its original release, it was fully colourised and theatrically re-released in 2004 and was once again a box office success. That same year he played another lighter role in the musical comedy Kohinoor which was also among the highest grossers of the year. In 1961, Kumar wrote, produced, and starred in the dacoit drama Gunga Jumna alongside his brother Nasir Khan, playing the title roles of Gunga and Jumna respectively. Kumar produced the film under his production company 'Citizen Films' and despite it being the highest-grossing film of the year, it would be the only film he produced. Though the directing credit went to the veteran director Nitin Bose, it was rumoured that Kumar had ghost directed the film as well as being involved in every aspect of its production. He chose the shade of saree that his co-star Vyjayanthimala would wear in every scene. The film received the National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film in Hindi, the Paul Revere Silver Bowl at the Boston International Film Festival, the Special Honour Diploma from the Czechoslovak Academy of Arts in Prague, and the Special Prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The same year, he also worked uncredited as a background narrator for B. R. Chopra's Dharmputra (1961). In 1962, British director David Lean reportedly offered him the role of "Sherif Ali" in his film Lawrence of Arabia (1962), but Kumar declined to perform in the movie. The role eventually went to Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor. Kumar commented in his much later released autobiography, "he thought Omar Sharif had played the role far better than he himself could have". Kumar was reportedly also being considered for a leading role opposite Elizabeth Taylor in a film that Lean was working on called Taj Mahal, before the project was cancelled. After a three-year hiatus, he returned in 1964 with his next film Leader, which underperformed at the box office and ended up being only an average grosser. Kumar was also credited with writing the story of this film. His next film Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966), opposite Waheeda Rehman was a box office flop. It was rumoured that he had ghost directed the film but the final credit was given to Abdul Rashid Kardar. That same year, he made his debut in Bengali cinema with a guest appearance in Paari, which starred Dharmendra in the lead role. In 1967, Kumar played a dual role of twins separated at birth in the hit film Ram Aur Shyam. In 1968, he starred alongside Manoj Kumar in Aadmi and opposite Sanjeev Kumar and Balraj Sahni in Sunghursh, which were both average grossers at the box office.
In 1970, Kumar played the title role in the Bengali film Sagina Mahato, which marked his first onscreen pairing with his wife Saira Banu. In the same year, he starred alongside Banu again in Gopi, which was a box office success. In 1972, he once again played dual roles as twin brothers in Dastaan, which was a box office flop and began a decline in Kumar's career as a leading man. The same year, he made an uncredited friendly appearance in Gulzar's Koshish starring Sanjeev Kumar. A Hindi remake of Sagina Mahato, simply titled Sagina was made in 1974 with both Kumar and Banu reprising their roles which also failed to do well at the box office. He also provided the uncredited voice narration for Naya Din Nai Raat (1974) in which he was originally supposed to essay nine different characters which he refused to do and suggested Sanjeev Kumar's name who, ultimately, performed the job. 1976, he played triple roles as a father and twin sons in Bairaag. Though his performance in triple roles was acclaimed, the film was his third consecutive failure at the box office. He personally regarded M. G. Ramachandran's performance in Enga Veettu Pillai better than his role in Ram Aur Shyam. He regards his performance in Bairaag much higher than that of Ram Aur Shyam. The rise of actors like Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar led to Kumar losing film offers from 1970 to 1980. He took a five-year hiatus from films from 1976 to 1981.
In 1981, he returned to films, reinventing himself in elderly character roles. His comeback film was the star-studded historical epic Kranti which was the biggest hit of the year. Appearing alongside an ensemble cast including Manoj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini and Shatrughan Sinha, he played the title role as revolutionary fighting for India's independence from British rule. In the post-Kranti phase, Kumar reinvented himself to play the "Angry Old Man" In 1982, he collaborated with director Subhash Ghai for the first time with Vidhaata, in which he starred alongside Sanjay Dutt, Sanjeev Kumar and Shammi Kapoor. Vidhaata was the highest-grossing film of the year. Later that year he starred alongside Amitabh Bachchan in Ramesh Sippy's Shakti, which was an average grosser at the box office, but won him critical acclaim and his eighth and final Filmfare Award for Best Actor. In 1984, he starred in Yash Chopra's social crime drama Mashaal opposite Anil Kapoor, which failed at the box office, but his performance was critically acclaimed. He also appeared alongside Rishi Kapoor in Duniya (1984) and Jeetendra in Dharm Adhikari (1986). His second collaboration with Subhash Ghai came with the 1986 ensemble action film Karma. Karma marked the first film which paired him opposite fellow veteran actress Nutan, although they were previously paired in an incomplete and unreleased film in the 1950s titled Shikwa. He acted opposite Nutan again in the 1989 action film Kanoon Apna Apna which also reunited him with Sanjay Dutt.
