Flashback: Rajesh Khanna-Dimple Kapadia's love story

July 20, 2012

rajeshkapadia

New Delhi: If there was one person continuously guarding Rajesh Khanna's health during his last days, it was Dimple Kapadia. Though Dimple didn’t prefer to come into the limelight much, she remained the force behind Kaka.


Raj Kapoor discovered Dimple Kapadia at the age of 13 and signed her for ‘Bobby’. The film later went on to become a hit but Dimple (16) took a strange decision of marrying the then superstar Rajesh Khanna (31) before the release of ‘Bobby’. However, the stranger things were yet to come. Dimple left the film world to raise her children.


But as they say, the glamour world is the other name of ecstasy, the poster perfect family life of Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia started to disintegrate towards the later years of 1970s. Many think that Kaka’s inability to handle the superstar status was the prime reason behind the marital woes.

Rajesh Khanna had become one star who wasn’t ready to compromise on anything lesser than a superhit while the Hindi film industry had started to shift its focus towards the new supernova of Bollywood in the form of Amitabh Bachchan.


Rajesh Khanna hadn’t stopped giving hits but the angry young man was moving fast towards the superstar tag. Someone had to bear for the fierce competition between two towering stars, so Rajesh Khanna’s family life began to suffer.


On the other hand, Dimple had given birth to two daughters till then; Twinkle breathed her first in 1973 while Rinke was born in 1977.


At one point of time, Dimple decided to return to films. Khanna’s hectic schedule kept him away for most of the time and ultimately the couple found it apt to separate in 1982. Dimple said in an interview given to India Today in 1985, “The life and happiness in our house came to an end the day I and Rajesh got married.”


Rajesh Khanna and Dimple continued to live separately but they didn’t bother to complete the divorce proceedings. Dimple returned to films and Rajesh Khanna’s acting career came to a halt, before he was fetched into politics.


Time washed away the bitterness between the couple and the two started to appear together in parties in the beginning of 1990s. Dimple also campaigned for Khanna during the elections in 1992.


Though the stardom was gone but Rajesh Khanna was itching for a comeback. He decided to produce ‘Jai Shiv Shankar’ (1992) with him and Dimple in the lead, unfortunately the film didn’t work.


But the lost love had returned to Rajesh Khanna’s life. Dimple remained Khanna’s closest ally till his last days.



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News Network
February 6,2020

Los Angeles, Feb 6: U.S. silver screen legend Kirk Douglas, the son of Jewish Russian immigrants who rose through the ranks to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars, has died, his family said Wednesday. He was 103.

One of the last survivors of the golden age of cinema and the father of Oscar-winning actor and film-maker Michael Douglas, the Spartacus actor was renowned for the macho tough guy roles he took on in around 90 movies over a six-decade career.

"It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103," Michael Douglas said in a statement posted to Facebook.

"To the world he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to."

Douglas was Oscar-nominated for his roles as a double-crossing and womanizing boxer in Champion (1949), a ruthless movie producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956).

But his only Academy Award came in 1995 -- an honorary lifetime achievement statuette "for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community."

Douglas is survived by second wife Anne Buydens, 100, and three sons. A fourth child, Eric, died of a drug overdose in his 40s, in 2004.

"(To) me and my brothers Joel and Peter he was simply Dad, to Catherine (Zeta-Jones), a wonderful father-in-law, to his grandchildren and great grandchild their loving grandfather, and to his wife Anne, a wonderful husband," said Michael.

"Kirk's life was well lived, and he leaves a legacy in film that will endure for generations to come, and a history as a renowned philanthropist who worked to aid the public and bring peace to the planet."

Kirk Douglas rose to the heights of Hollywood from an impoverished childhood as the son of Jewish Russian immigrants.

He was one of the last survivors of the golden age of cinema, often portraying the macho and not-always-likeable tough guy in around 90 movies over a six-decade career.

With charming dimples and a cleft chin, Douglas was a renowned ladies' man but also admitted to being angry into adulthood because of his difficult New York childhood.

"I still have anger in me," he said in a New York Times article in 1988 after the release of his first autobiography.

"I think I'm loath to let it go because I think that anger was the fuel I used in accomplishing what I wanted to do; you see it in my films, you see it in imitations people do of me."

Screen legend

The role that perhaps immortalized him as a star was that of a rebellious Roman Empire slave turned gladiator in the 1960 epic Spartacus.

Douglas also produced the film, which took four Oscars. He won praise for listing in the credits the real name of Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted for his Communist sympathies and wrote under a pen name.

There were Oscar nominations for his roles as a double-crossing and womanizing boxer in Champion (1949), a ruthless movie producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and of tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956).

But his only Oscar came in 1995 as an honorary lifetime achievement award "for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community."

Other major acting roles were as a French private in a botched suicidal mission in World War I in Paths of Glory (1957) and American Western legend Doc Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957).

"Often cast as a villain, amoral climber or self-obsessed grabber, Kirk Douglas took care to color his hard edges with suggestions of pain, wit and sympathy," says American Film Institute, which ranks him as 17th on its list of the greatest male screen legends.

In the 1970s he stood behind the camera, directing Scalawag (1973) and Posse (1975).

He also took up writing, penning his first autobiography The Ragman's Son in 1988 and following with around 10 other titles.

In the autobiography, Douglas writes: "I always worked in the theory that when you play a weak character, find a moment when he's strong. And if you're playing a strong character, find a moment when he's weak."

Tough childhood

Douglas was born in New York on December 9, 1916 to illiterate Jewish Russian immigrants, an only boy with six sisters.

He started out as Issur Danielovitch, later Izzy Demsky. It was tough, he recounted later, with the family poor, anti-Semitism rife and his distant alcoholic father forced to earn a living as a ragman.

"In a sense, I've always felt on the outside, looking in," he said in the New York Times article.

"It's my background, damn it. My father was an illiterate Russian immigrant, a ragman, the lowest rung on the economic scale."

His dream of a way out was through acting and he started in high school, eventually entering the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and changing his name along the way.

To survive he took jobs as a waiter, labourer and porter. In 1941 he hit Broadway but his budding career was interrupted by service in the Navy. After the war, he headed for Hollywood.

His romantic conquests were many, although he once said he had never counted, and included starls such as Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Ava Gardner.

Douglas' four sons followed him into cinema.

Oscar-winning actor and producer Michael and Joel were from a marriage to actress Diana Webster, whom he divorced in 1951.

Three years later he married Belgian-American Anne Buydens, having Peter and then Eric, who died in 2004 from an accidental overdose.

Douglas has also brushed death: he survived a helicopter crash in 1991 and a massive stroke in 1996 that nearly robbed him of speech.

Around the time of his 100th birthday in 2016, he attributed his remarkable longevity to his second marriage.

"I was lucky enough to find my soulmate 63 years ago, and I believe our wonderful marriage and our nightly 'golden hour' chats have helped me survive all things," he said in celebrity magazine Closer Weekly.

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Agencies
July 20,2020

Los Angeles, Jul 20: Hollywood stars Robert Downey Jr and Tom Holland have joined their "Avengers: Endgame" co-star Chris Evans in sending sweet messages to a young boy who saved his sister from a dog attack.

Six-year-old Bridger saved his four-year-old sister on July 9 by standing between her and a charging dog.

According to Nicole Noel Walker, his aunt, the child received 90 stitches after getting bitten by the canine.

After Walker reached out to the Avengers team through an Instagram post, Evans, in a video message, promised to send Bridger, an avid Avengers fan, "an authentic Captain America shield".

Now the 'Iron-Man' star promised he will gift Bridger something "special" on his next birthday.

"Bridger, you're a rockstar. I hear (Captain America) sent a shield your way. I'm gonna do one better, you call me on your next birthday. I got something special for you. By the way, that's a promise. A promise beats a shield," Downey Jr said.

Holland, meanwhile, spoke to Bridger on a video call and invited him to come to the sets of the next "Spider-Man" film.

"If you ever want to come to set and hang out, and see the Spider-Man suit up close, and hang out with us, you're always welcome. I want to say you are so brave, mate. We are all so proud of you, and your little sister is so lucky to have someone like you," he added.

Other Marvel stars Mark Ruffalo and Brie Larson, Hollywood star Anne Hathaway, "The Flash" series stars Grant Gustin and Robbie Amell also praised Bridger's bravery.

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Agencies
March 1,2020

Washington D.C., Mar 1: British actor Daniel Radcliffe in a recent interview said he is not rushing back to reprise the role of young wizard, Harry Potter, anytime soon.

The 30-year-old star who rose to fame with the first eight films in J.K. Rowling's famed franchise, told Variety that he doesn't like to say no to things but reprising the role in the 'Fantastic Beasts' prequels is not something he's "rushing to do".

"I feel like those films have moved on and they're doing just fine without us. I'm happy to keep it that way. I like what my life is now," Radcliffe told the outlet.

"I'm not saying that I'll never go back into any franchise, but I like the flexibility that I have with my career now. And I don't want to get into a situation where I'm signed up for one series for years in advance," cited Variety as Radcliffe as saying.

Radcliffe is currently gearing up for his upcoming mystery-thriller 'Escape from Pretoria,' a true-life prison drama, where he is set to essay the character Tim Jenkin.

The forthcoming flick is set to hit the theatres on March 6.

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