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October 13. It was the 98th birth anniversary of Ashok Kumar on Tuesday. No one noticed. His family said, without an element of surprise, “What did you expect? Only one Gujarati newspaper carried a week-long series on him.”
Like it not Gen Next, too, does not know of the sheer artistry of Dadamoni, the most clean-hearted actor I have had the privilege to know in Bollywood. They don’t know of Rehman, Motilal, Balraj Sahni, too many great names to list here. The schoolgirl-next-door, believe it or not, quite a film viewer herself, did not know of Dilip Kumar either.
read more HERE
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Tango
Anu malik was not at all a redundant composer at that time.In fact he composed the hit music for MHN ...
No Manoj I have no links but it was all over in the music industry. At one point ...
I think tango is refering to KNPH ... and i agree with his views. Rajesh Roshan sucks bigtime! Even a ...
As far as I know, BOI.com had claimed SIK made 42 crores and RNBDJ made 42.5 crores. Then they corrected ...
intezar kab tak hum karenge bhala
May be some Hrithik bhakth singing hoping Kites to release soon 
lol Shetty. And yes sounds like Jay visited lots of places. 
pardesi 23 October 2009
08:42:36 pm
Have not seen too many Ashok Kumar films, but I really liked him in Mahal and Chalti Ka Naam Gadi. Maybe he was overshadowed by his genius brother.
Giddh 23 October 2009
08:47:18 pm
His brother became popular long after an era in which Dadamuni was a Superstar (spanning more than 2 decades!). He was the original style guru and an amazingly natural actor at the same time.
Salim 24 October 2009
01:22:51 am
Dadamoni was one of the greatest character actors of all time. So many memorable performances, it’s hard to know where to start – Chhoti Si Baat, Mili, Naya Zamana, Jewel Thief, Bahu Begum, Bandini, Aarti, etc etc etc.
As a main actor he was good too – I’ve seen the movies he did with Meena Kumari but not too many others of his from the 40’s & 50’s. One of my favourite songs is Badli Mein Chhipe Chaand, by Hemantda and Lata, from Shatranj, with Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari. I will try to post it soon (am at work so can’t get on youtube to search it!).
pardesi 24 October 2009
05:44:57 am
Of course as a “character” actor I saw a lot of his films and he was unstoppable.
Giddh 24 October 2009
10:31:36 am
Salim, Pardesi – did you know that he was a method actor and used to rehearse a lot – be it small things as how he lights up a cigar etc. But when you see his performances they are unbelievably natural.
He was amongst rare breed of actors of that time who blended theatrical and natural acting very well – one other name I can take for this is Balraj Sahani.
Giddh 24 October 2009
10:39:22 am
I know/knew some ppl from that era who were crazy for his films which released in late 30’s and 40s (Kismet especially).
geetaduttfans 24 October 2009
10:50:33 am
Thanks for posting an article on the truly first Indian superstar Ashok Kumar sahab. Not sure how many people know about it, but he has sung some songs for himself in the 30s and 40s. He also sang a duet with young Geeta Roy (later Dutt) for the film Padmini (1948) under the baton of maestro Ghulam Haider sahab.
Giddh 24 October 2009
10:58:16 am
Thanks GDF for that info.
BTW about his hoarse voice; this is from one of his Interviews:
———————-
“I had never suffered from any illness. This asthma started with a film called Rakhi about a brother and sister. Waheeda Rehman was my sister. We die in the last scene and we were supposed to say some dialogues in a very hoarse voice. I was asked to drink ice-cold water and then immediately mouth the dialogues.
Twenty-five glasses of ice-cold water later, my voice remained the same. I did this for two days. On the third, I got the flu. I was shooting in Chennai with Waheeda Rehman. Since I had the flu, we decided to wrap up soon. Only, I fainted after I finished and was taken to hospital. ”
———————-
Giddh 24 October 2009
11:01:58 am
Unfortunately just like his films are not getting preserved, the interview posted on Rediff is also gone now. I got the above from google “cached” pages.
Rohit,NGers; I do not know if one can post full interview/article here on NG such as that.. which is no longer on original site.
Giddh 24 October 2009
11:08:24 am
BY THE time Filmfare instituted the Filmfare Awards in 1953, Kumudlal Kunjilal Ganguly was already about 45 films and exactly 42 years old. Six of his biggest hits, including “Kismet”, which became the first Indian film to run for a year (and for three years in Kolkata’s Roxy theatre) and whose box office performance was rivalled only 32 years later by “Sholay”, were already behind him. Filmistan, the studio he had set up along with Shashadhar Mukherjee (his brother-in-law), Gyan Mukherjee (the director of “Kismet”) and Rai Bahadur Chunilal (Madan Mohan’s father) producing hits like “Ziddi”, “Majboor” and “Mashaal”, was already 10 years old. And together with Motilal and K.L.Saigal, he was already one of the reigning monarchs of Hindi cinema. More importantly, Hindi cinema had entered the decade that would mark the reign of the triumvirate — Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor.
Read more HERE
Caulfield 24 October 2009
11:21:23 am
“He was amongst rare breed of actors of that time who blended theatrical and natural acting very well ”
Well said Giddh. That’s what makes Ashok Kumar one of the finest actors of this country. While he entertained everyone with his theatrical accent and dialog delivery, he made sure his acting was also real.
Doga 24 October 2009
01:15:06 pm
I once saw a interview of Dev Anand, the way he was talking about Ashok kumar, the stars nowadays talks about Big B that way.
It goes to show how big a star Ashok was.
Doga 24 October 2009
01:31:15 pm
*talk
Doga 24 October 2009
01:33:06 pm
Its also not any big thing that Ashok kumar is being forgotten, in 50 years many things change, its a very long time.
Giddh 25 October 2009
02:28:58 am
Agree with Doga. 50 years is long time. Just take for example Charlie Chaplin- like I have always said – when anyone draws a list about top 10/20/50 movies/superstars etc…his name/movies rarely come up in that..even if they are gems even today. He was a phenomenon across the world and excelled in every field of film-making. But star of millennium is a AB just because he came late in the millennium. People have short memory – cant blame anyone thou.
I am not taking away anything from AB here, but if you ask me – Charlie was way ahead of anyone as the right choice for the tag (which I don’t take very seriously anyways).
As for preserving the old films, I think likes of Dev Anand had taken efforts to do that for their own films. I feel there is very less effort to preserve such work – unless the bygone star/actor has stirred some political/regional pride in some way.
pardesi 25 October 2009
05:11:56 pm
One of my favorite Dada Moni roles was that of a philandering old man in Victoria 203. I have often wondered if the role of Sexy Sam was not modeled on that, an old man with a wandering eye and a heart of gold!!
Aditya 25 October 2009
07:56:52 pm
i wouldn’t say “forgotten” but definitely terribly underrated. an actor like ashok kumar aka “dadamoni” can never be forgotten. he’s probably the most underrated actor in hindi cinema history. dilip kumar loomed so large that he overshadowed truly great actors(balraj sahni, motilal, ashok kumar, etc) of his era.