Jeetendra

Jeetendra was born in a Punjabi Khatri family as Ravi Kapoor in Amritsar, Punjab, to Amarnath and Krishna Kapoor, whose business dealt with imitation jewellery, supplied to film industry. He attended St. Sebastian's Goan High School in Girgaum, Mumbai[2] with his friend Rajesh Khanna and then studied at Siddharth College in Mumbai. While supplying jewellery to V. Shantaram, he was cast as Sandhya's character's double in the 1959 movie Navrang.[3]

Jeetendra's active acting career spanned the 1960s to the 1990s. Jeetendra got his first major break of his life with V. Shantaram's Boond jo ban gayee moti (1964). However, it was the film Farz (1967) that served as his stepping stone to success. The tee shirt and white shoes he picked up from a retail store for the Mast Baharon Ka Main Aashiq number in Farz, became his trademark. Farz was followed by films such as Caravan and Humjoli, in which Jeetendra had more dance numbers. His vigorous dancing in the films won him the epithet; "Jumping Jack of Bollywood".[4][5]

He has acted in nearly 200 films as the main lead, a feat matched by just a handful of his peers since the inception of Hindi cinema. Jeetendra was frequently paired with Jaya Prada or Sridevi for remakes of Telugu films by Rama Rao Tatineni, K. Bapayya and K. Raghavendra Rao; these included Sanjog, Aulad, Majaal, Justice Chaudhury, Mawaali (1983), Himmatwala (1983) and Tohfa (1984). He also acted in many remakes in Hindi of Krishna's Telugu movies and had very close association with him. Besides these south Indian remakes, there was a subdued side of Jeetendra whenever he'd worked with the writer/lyricist Gulzar in films such as Parichay, Kinara and Khushboo that had several beautifully penned songs such as "O Majhi Re", "Musafir Hoon Yaaron" and "Naam Gum Jaayega", composed by Rahul Dev Burman and sung by Kishore Kumar.

Besides his frequent pairings with Jaya Prada and Sridevi during the '80s, Jeetendra's popular co-stars were Mumtaz, Hema Malini, Moushumi Chatterjee, Reena Roy, Neetu Singh, Sulakshana Pandit, Rekha and Bindiya Goswami.

Jeetendra (right) with daughter Ekta (center) and son Tusshar (left) in 2016

Jeetendra had met his wife, Shobha, when she was only 14. She completed school, went to college, and was employed as an Air Hostess with British Airways. When Jeetendra was struggling between 1960–66 to establish himself as an actor, he was in a relationship with Shobha and she was his girlfriend until 1972. It was not until the release of Bidaai on 18 October 1974, that Jeetendra and Shobha decided to get married, which they did in a simple ceremony at Janki Kutir with only a few family members and friends present (Gulzar, Rajesh Khanna and Sanjeev Kumar amongst the noted celebrities).[6] In her authorized biography, Hema Malini claimed that they almost got married, but she backed out.[7]

Jeetendra and Shobha have two children from their marriage. Their daughter, Ekta Kapoor, runs Balaji Telefilms and their son Tusshar Kapoor is also an actor.[8] Jeetendra made a brief appearance in one of his daughter's produced films Kucch To Hai, a thriller movie released in 2002, where he appeared alongside his son Tusshar.

• 1998 – Guest of Honour Award at the 18th Ujala Cinema Express Awards[9]
• 2000 – Lifetime Achievement Award in film personalities[10]
• 2002 – Lifetime Achievement Award at the Zee Gold Bollywood Movie Awards in New York.[11]
• 2003 – Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2004 – "Legend of Indian Cinema" Award at Atlantic City (United States).[12]
• 2005 – Screen Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2008 – Sansui Television Lifetime Achievement Award[13]
• 2012 – Zee Cine Award for Lifetime Achievement
• 2012 – Lions Gold Awards: Most Evergreen Romantic Hero[14]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jeetendra.

• Jeetendra at IMDb