Raj Kapoor surrounded himself with the foremost talents in filmmaking, acting, writing (Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’), music composition (Jaikishan Dayabhai Pankal, ‘Shankarsinh Raguwanshi’), and playback singers, including Mukesh, ‘Mohamed Rafi’, and Lata Mangeshkar. Kapoor continued to make films of varying critical and popular success up until his death in 1988, and apparently considered Mera Naam Joker his personal favorite. He is still a well-known name not only in India, but in the Middle East, SE Asia, and Eastern Europe. His descendants have attempted to continue the RK Films banner.

The songs of his films endeared Raj Kapoor not only to the masses in India, but to audiences in large parts of Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, where his films were to become enormous commercial successes. Visual imagery would always be an important part of his films.

On February 6, 1947, Raj Kapoor launched his first production and directorial debut Aag with a small muhurat and pooja at Eastern Studios in midtown Mumbai. Shooting began after a week and the film was released exactly a year later at Shimla. Its budget was an astronomical Rs 3.5 lakhs, and Raj mortgaged his first car and even borrowed money from his domestic servant Dwarka. The offbeat film starred three leading ladies including Nargis as well as relatives who were into acting and was released by Raj himself after distributors refused to touch it. It did not do too well commercially.

The fifties saw him establish himself as a producer director of great caliber as well as a top actor along with his fellow contemporaries Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand. For more than fifteen years, he remained an evergreen hero of Hindi films. It was Mehboob’s Andaaz (1949) that initiated his rise as a top star, then his own films stabilized the process. Aawara was followed by Shri 420 (1955) about an innocent villager who gets corrupted when he comes to the city to make a living, Anadi (1959), a story on similar lines of a naïve simple hero used by a cruel and corrupt society, Jis Des Mein Ganga Bahti Hai (1960) and Sargam (1964). Chori Chori and Jagte Raho (1956) were his last two film with Nargis as his lead pair. It is widely believed that this lead pair was involved romantically off screen as well.

Raj Kapoor family In 1970, he released one of his most ambitious project ‘Mera Naam Joker’ about the life of a joker in a circus who cried within while making people laugh, outside. He took 6 years to complete the film and although it was brilliant in parts, the film was a failure at the box office. Kapoor was dejected but was back on his tracks with Bobby (1973) a teenage love story introducing Dimple Kapadia and his second son Rishi Kapoor which was a phenomenal success. With Bobby, he began to portray his heroines more sensually in his films. He continued with the trend in films like Satyam Sivam Sundaram (1978) starring Zeenat Aman and Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) introducing Mandakini. In between he made Prem Rog (1982) taking up a widow’s cause and encouraging remarriage among them. His last film was Henna, an Indo- Pak love story, during the making of which he succumbed to his illness. He had been suffering from Asthma. The film was later completed by his elder son Randhir Kapoor.

Known as the Showman of Indian Cinema, the image of Raj Kapoor as the Charlie Chaplin like ‘Raju’ is hard to forget. This Bollywood actor- director was born in Peshawar on 14 December 1924 to Prithviraj Kapoor, a famous actor.

As a child, Raj was affectionately called Chisto, Gora or Lashkaree. Even in school Raj Kapoor was more interested in extra-curricular activities like debates and acting. Since childhood Raj was interested in filmmaking but in those days there were no film schools where one could study. So Raj dropped out of school to work with Bombay Talkies as a clapper boy. There he started picking up knowledge about films by hanging out in editing labs, paying attention to the director and observing the going-on’s around him.
.Did you know?
Raj Kapoor’s first film role was at the age of seven in Inquilab, produced in 1935 by Debaki Bose

Raj Kapoor was convinced that his future lay in filmmaking. At the age of 23 he pumped in all his money to produce his first film ‘Aag’ in which he acted as well as directed. Aag was a big hit and Raj Kapoor was credited with introducing a youthful style of films.

The success of his second film Barsaat (1949) enabled him to launch R K Studios, and established Raj Kapoor and Nargis as hindi cinema’s most popular romantic star couple.

It was with Awara (1951) that Raj Kapoor first emerged as a lovable tramp. Raj played a young tramp who comes to Bombay in search of an honorable existence only to find himself caught in the world of criminals. The story deals with his struggle to find an honourable way out of the underworld. His trademark, rolled up trousers, patched overcoat and bowler hat in Awara were adored by audiences both at home and abroad. Awara became so popular in the USSR that puppet shows featuring Raj and Nargis dolls were organized, the film was dubbed in Russian and its prints were even flown out to two Soviet expeditions near the North Pole!
Fundu Fact
Shri 420, released in 1955 is one of Raj Kapoor’s most popular films. The popular song Mera Joota hai Japani is from this film. The numbers 420 are commonly used for someone who has a reputation for theft and cheating. Do you know why? It is because Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (law) deals with such crimes!!!

As part of the trio of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor emerged as one of India’s best-loved screen idols.

With Jagte Raho (1957) Raj Kapoor entered the ranks of more srious or art film makers. The film dealing with the adventures of a thief who runs from house to house trying to escape from the police received the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 1958.

Sangam, produced in 1964, was Raj Kapoor’s first film in color. The film tells the tale of a love triangle, but with patriotism and the spirit of sacrifice as its backdrop. Sangam became the biggest box-office grosser in the history of Indian cinema, a record it held for 5 years.
Did you know?
Raj Kapoor most ambitious project was also one of his biggest failures. Mera Naam Joker was a three hour-long film, which took six years to film and cost a fortune to make. It was in part based on Raj Kapoor’s own life but was set in the backdrop of a circus.

Raj Kapoor continued making films like Bobby, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Prem Rog and Ram Teri Ganga Maili. Kapoor’s later films stood out for their showmanship and glamour as much as his earlier films had been noticed for their social vision.

He was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1988, and died soon after. What remains however is his contribution to Indian Cinema and his place as one of its finest products.

Ruddy-cheeked and light-eyed, Raj Kapoor was unmistakably Destiny’s blue-eyed boy. Raj Kapoor

It got him many film roles and the talented Kapoor made sure he left a mark in each of them.

This boy wonder started multi-tasking from the age of 24 when he produced, directed and acted in Aag (1948).

He had the unique ability to marshal talents like writer K A Abbas, lyricists Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri, music maestros Shanker-Jaikishan, singer Mukesh and numerous actors and make them work at their optimum.

He gifted names like Nimmi, Dimple Kapadia, Rishi Kapoor, Padmini Kolhapure and Mandakini to the film industry.

As a romantic actor, his onscreen romance with Nargis, fuelled by larger-than-life stories of their off-screen relationship, was a glorious chapter in the cinematic history of Hindi cinema.

But the roles Kapoor played best were those of a messiah of social change and of the impassioned advocate of universal love.

Born Ranbir Raj Kapoor on December 14, 1924, in Peshawar to thespian Prithviraj Kapoor and his wife Rama, Kapoor failed his matriculation examination. Drawn towards cinema, he started working as an assistant on the sets of Dilip Kumar’s first film, Bombay Talkies’ Jwar Bhatta.

After a few inconsequential roles, Kapoor got his break as hero in 1947, in Kidar Sharma’s Neel Kamal opposite Madhubala. The next year, he was already married and had plunged into directing his debut, Aag (1948), the dark, brooding meditation on love.

Raj Kapoor first showed his scene-stealing abilities in Mehboob Khan’s Andaz (1949), where he costarred with Nargis and Dilip Kumar. Kapoor played Nargis’s flamboyant but suspicious husband with aplomb. Flamboyance was his forte in other early successes like Dastaan and Sargam as well.

Kapoor was only 25 when his directorial venture Barsaat won him recognition as one who enjoyed a direct connection with the masses. Moreover, the self-obsessive pain of Aag paved the way for a more universal empathy evidenced in the way he captured mountain maid Nimmi’s anguish in Barsaat.

The actor-director enjoyed rare creative control of his image and his work. His next venture Awaara (1951) was a fascinating and psychologically adept look at a man caught in the centre of a nature-versus-nurture debate.

His knack for romance is revealed in the famous sequence where an angry Kapoor slaps Nargis after she calls him awaara. He is angry at her for being so attractive and assured, at himself for not quite being able to come to terms with his feelings of inadequacy prompted by his dubious background, at his libido for wanting her and at his ego for living in constant dread of a probable rejection.

Awaara, when released in Russia as Brodigaya, achieved unprecedented success and the song Awaara hoon became a Russian favourite.

Kapoor’s RK banner flew high with Shri 420 (1955), the story of a hobo (Kapoor) caught between material aspirations (as represented by the sharp Nadira) and the higher self (as represented by schoolteacher Nargis). The tramp of Shri 420, who doffed his battered bowler hat to Chaplin, touched a universal nerve.

The popularity of this tramp with a golden heart grew to gargantuan dimensions after Kapoor portrayed almost saintly extensions in Anadi (1959) and Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai (1960); and, later, in Deewana (1967), Sapnon Ka Saudagar (1968) and Mera Naam Joker (1970).

Kapoor’s Sangam (1964) saw a love triangle centering around a man (Kapoor), his wife (Vyjayanthimala) and their best friend (Rajendra Kumar). His ability to see and empathise with each character’s emotional viewpoint spoke volumes about his sensitivity as a director. Sangam’s thunderous success triggered off a vogue for foreign locales (Love In Tokyo, An Evening In Paris) in Hindi films.

After Sangam, a now-rotund and 40-plus Kapoor looked lacklustre in films like Around The World opposite much younger heroines like Rajshri and Hema Malini. But the actor was too obsessed with his pet project, Mera Naam Joker to realise he should be eating and drinking less.

In the ambitious Mera Naam Joker, Kapoor seemed undecided about the film’s scope — should the tale about a clown’s tragic love story strive for intimacy or restrict itself to spectacle or, maybe, strive for a bit of both? The film failed to live up to the high expectations of the audience.

Any other man would have lost heart after such a debacle, but not Kapoor. Despite creditors beating at his door, he refused to keep the lid on production expenses and defiantly made Bobby (1973) with two newcomers, Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia.

Even if one is not predisposed towards young love stories, one enjoys Bobby for the sheer beauty of its visuals, the exuberance of youth and Kapoor’s ability to transcend the generation gap when communicating to his audience.

Bobby’s stellar success was not duplicated by Kapoor’s next, Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978). Kapoor valiantly attempted to recycle Aag and convince us that, in love, a beautiful soul is of paramount importance. But his camera’s predilection for heroine Zeenat Aman’s curves told another story.

Raj Kapoor’s sensitivity towards his female protagonists found more favour in Prem Rog (1982), a film about widow remarriage, and Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985), where he employed a woman as a metaphor for a once pure, but now defiled, country.

At 60, he had lost none of his ability to push the audience’s emotional throttle. On June 3, 1988, Raj Kapoor, who had been suffering from asthma, finally succumbed.

The script of Henna was ready but Kapoor was not there to direct it. In keeping with the theme of his life (as articulated emphatically in Mera Naam Joker) — the show must go on — his eldest son Randhir directed Heena for the RK banner.

The film was a spectacular success.

The showman could not have asked for a better tribute.