Happy Birthday Shashi Kapoor!

Today, the 18th of March, marks the 75th birthday of Bollywood's veteran actor, Shashi Kapoor. Award winning Indian film actor and producer, Shashi ji comes from a filmy background with legendary actors Raj Kapoor and late Shammi Kapoor being his brothers and Prithviraj Kapoor his father.

Kapoor sir's career started as a child artist in his brother Raj Kapoor's movies like Aag (1948) and Awara (1951). However, he made his successful debut as a lead actor in Yash Raj's movie Dharamputra, after which there was no looking back. Shashi went on to act in more than a 100 movies and gave blockbusters like Waqt, Deewar, Satyam Shivam Sundram, Kranti, New Delhi Times and many more. His dialogue from the very famous Deewar, "Mere paas Ma hai" is one of the most popular dialogues in the industry. 

Shashi Kapoor is not only famous in Bollywood, but has also created a niche in the International film industry. He did lead roles in movies such as Pretty Polly (1967), Siddhartha (1972) to name a few.

1980 embarked the setting up of his own production house Vala, where he made movies like Junoon (1978), Kalyug (1980), Vijeta (1982), Utsav (1984). That was a complete new phase in his life as he produced many hits under his banner.

Shashi ji received many accolades and awards for his stupendous performances, and these include the Filmfare award for films Junoon and Kalyug as a producer. Perhaps his most successful film as a producer, 1978's Junoon is a National award winning film as well. His incredible performance in New Delhi Times earned him the National Award for best actor. In the year 2009, he was honored with 2 lifetime achievement awards by the 7th Pune International Film Festival and 11th Mumbai Film Festival respectively. Followed by this was the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award at the 55th Annual Filmfare Awards in 2010. He even won the Padma Bhushan in 2011, noted to be one of the greatest achievements in his life.

Married to late English actress Jennifer Kendel, he has 3 children - Kunal Kapoor, Karan Kapoor and Sanjana Kapoor.