Amjad Khan (actor)

Amjad Khan was born in Bombay, British India to legendary actor Jayant in a Pashtun family in 1940.[1]

His elder brother was actor Imtiaz Khan. Amjad Khan was educated at St. Andrew's High School, in Bandra.

He attended R D National College, where he held the position of general secretary, the highest elected student body representative.

Before Amjad Khan came to films, he was a theatre actor. His first role was as a child actor at the age of 11 in the film Nazneen in 1951. His next role was at the age of 17 in the film Ab Dilli Dur Nahin (1957).[4] He assisted K. Asif in the film Love And God in the late 1960s and had a brief appearance in the film. The film was left incomplete after Asif's death in 1971, and it was finally released in 1986. In 1973, he appeared in Hindustan Ki Kasam in a small role.

In 1975, he was offered the role of dacoit Gabbar Singh for the film Sholay by Salim Khan, who was one of its writers. In preparation for the role, Amjad read Abhishapth Chambal, a book on Chambal dacoits written by Taroon Kumar Bhaduri (actress Jaya Bhaduri's father). Amjad shot to stardom with the movie. His portrayal of Gabbar Singh is considered by many to be the first depiction of pure evil in Indian Cinema. His mannerisms and dialogues have become an integral part of the Bollywood lexicon and spawned numerous parodies and spoofs [Specially "Soja Nahi to Gabbar Ajayega"]. Sholay went on to become a blockbuster. Although it boasted an ensemble cast of superstars including Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar, who was nominated that year for the Filmfare award for Best Actor category, Amjad stole the show with his unorthodox and eerie dialogue delivery. Even to this day people fondly remember his dialogues and mannerisms. He later appeared in advertisements as Gabbar Singh endorsing Britannia Glucose Biscuits (popularly known as Gabbar Ki Asli Pasand), the first incidence of a villain being used to sell a popular product.[5]

After the success of Sholay, Khan continued to play negative roles in many subsequent Hindi films in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s – superseding, in terms of popularity and demand, the earlier Indian actor, Ajit. He often acted as villain opposite Amitabh Bachchan as the hero. His role in Inkaar was also presented in terrifying manner. He made his presence felt in Des Pardes, Nastik, Satte Pe Satta, Chambal Ki Kasam, Ganga Ki Saugandh, Hum Kisise Kum Nahin and Naseeb.

Khan was also acclaimed for playing many unconventional roles. In the critically acclaimed film Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) (based on the novel of the same title), by Munshi Premchand and directed by Satyajit Ray, Khan played the helpless and deluded monarch Wajid Ali Shah, whose kingdom, Avadh, is being targeted by British colonialists from the British East India Company. It is the only movie in which he dubbed a song. In 1979, he portrayed Emperor Akbar in the film Meera. He played many positive roles such as in Yaarana (1981) and Laawaris (1981) as Amitabh's friend and father respectively, Rocky (1981) and Commander (1981). In the art film Utsav (1984), he portrayed Vatsayana, the author of the Kama Sutra. In 1988, he appeared in the Merchant Ivory English language film The Perfect Murder as an underworld don. He excelled at playing comical characters in films such as Qurbani (1980), Love Story and Chameli Ki Shaadi (1986). In 1991, he reprised his role as Gabbar Singh in Ramgarh Ke Sholay, a parody of the legendary film which included look-alikes of Dev Anand and Amitabh Bachchan.

He ventured into directing for a brief period in the 1980s, directing and starring in Chor Police (1983), which did not do well, and Ameer Aadmi Gareeb Aadmi (1985) which was a blockbuster at the box office.

Amjad was the president of the Actors Guild Association. He was respected in the film industry. He would intervene and negotiate disputes between actors and directors/producers. One such dispute occurred when Meenakshi Seshadri was dropping out in between the movie Damini by Raj Kumar Santoshi reason behind was Meenakshi rejected his proposal, Amjad Khan sort out the matter and forced Raj Santoshi to taken back his harsh decision. He solve another dispute occurred when Dimple Kapadia agreed to play a mother role and later backed out. The entire film producers' community tried to boycott her. Khan intervened on behalf of the Actors Guild.

In 1972, he married Shehla Khan and in the following year, she gave birth to their first child, Shadaab Khan. He also had a daughter, Ahlam Khan, and another son, Seemaab Khan. Ahlam married popular theatre actor Zafar Karachiwala in 2011.[6]

In 1976,[7][8] Amjad Khan had a severe accident on the Mumbai-Goa highway which left him with broken ribs and a punctured lung. He was going to participate in the shooting of the film The Great Gambler, starring Amitabh Bachchan.[9] Due to the serious injuries he also almost slipped into a coma, but he died and then recovered again. That was quite surprising. The drug administered during his operation caused him to gain a lot of weight, which led to further health complications. As a result of his increasing weight, he died in 1992 due to heart failure at the age of 51. Several of the films he had completed were released after his death, until 1996. His funeral was attended by almost all the filmstars as well as directors, producers and renowned personalities of Film fraternity. He was buried at Naupada Qabarstan of Bandra West in Mumbai just beside the grave of his father, Actor Jayant (Zakaria Khan) on 28th July. The name of the place, where he used to live at Bandra has been named as Kalakar Amjad Khan Chowk. He was the President of Actors Guild till the last day of his life and also attended a meeting in the afternoon of 27th July 1992.

• Amjad Khan at IMDb
• Amjad Khan biography