Comedy star of Bollywood and Bangla films, professor and playwright turned terrifying villain – Indian Tribune

Vikas Dutta

New Delhi, March 29 (IANS) While his performances as the eccentric, mustache-obsessed and rule-enforcing Bhawani Shankar and the strict ACP Dhurandhar Batawadekar in breezy Bollywood comedies are undoubtedly unforgettable, he takes a more down-to-earth role in Gaddi. played a role. A glittering but empty edifice of the movie world.

Utpal Dutt, who played Professor Gupta in the 1971 film, learns that no scolding or advice can change a teenager smitten with a movie star (Jaya Bhaduri, then playing her first Hindi film). I know that the only solution is to let her study and immerse herself in the charm of movies. We experience firsthand the unnaturalness, heartbreak, and conflict behind them.

Playing a teacher with innovative ideas was not a challenge for Dutt, who was born on this day (March 29) in 1929 in Barisal, Bengal (now in Bangladesh). He was an English teacher at the then South Point School in Calcutta in 1929. He flourished in the 1950s, winning the admiration of his students for his insight into literature, especially Shakespeare’s plays, and his perfect diction.

He was like Mr. Bhattacharya in “Julie” (1975), who guaranteed a happy ending, and Mr. Singh in “Baat Ban Jai” (1986), who gave complete freedom to his niece (Zeenat Aman). , will be seen again as a wise elder. To choose a life partner.

On the other hand, in the grand finale of ‘Gol Maal’ (1979), he uses his fluent English to beat up the police inspector (Om Prakash) and also derisively calls him ‘Munkumunda’.

Dutt’s sense of timing, funny intonations, especially his pronunciation of ‘achha’, and the crazy brilliance and laughs he can generate have made him a great choice in comedies like ‘Gol Maal’ and ‘Ran Birangi’, especially in the slapstick dramas. now shines. A look at Sheikh Farooq through the children’s playground ‘Kissi Se Na Kehna’ (both his 1983) and ‘Lakhon Ki Baat’ (1984).

He can also use similar mannerisms to play a chilling villain – the cunning one who drives the protagonist (Uttam Kumar) to despair and ruin in Amanush (Bengali and Hindi, 1975). Munim Ghoshal and the rapacious Maganlal Meghraj in Satyajit Ray’s Joy Baba. The underworld don Saxena in The Great Gambler, who becomes the bane of Amitabh Bachchan’s life in Fernat (Bengali, 1979), Safji in Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981); and the scheming politician Seetharam in Inquilab (1984).

All of this acting ability was due to his thorough foundation in theater, as he was passionate about theater since his student days and became famous both as a performer and as a playwright. He also ended up going to jail on sedition charges.

But lucky for him it was Shakespeare. His performance in “Richard III” brought him to the attention of the Kendal family (who later became Shashi Kapoor’s in-laws), and he accepted an invitation to join their troupe, touring India with them. For the next two years.

Earlier, his performance as ‘Othello’ led to his first film ‘Michael Madhusudan’ (Bengali, 1950).

Dutt then founded his own theater company, performing plays by Shakespeare as well as Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Rabindranath Tagore, Maxim Gorky, and Bertolt Brecht, before concentrating on Bengali theater. He decided to take to the streets and reach the world stage. people.

He has translated and adapted many of Shakespeare’s works and contemporary playwrights, while also writing nearly 20 plays, including Aaj Ka Shahjahan, which was the inspiration for Amitabh Bachchan’s The Last Lear. Did.

The turning point was Karol (1965), which was based on the 1946 Indian Navy mutiny. His role as a cigar-smoking admiral who orders artillery fire on rebels inspired director KA Abbas to cast him as a Punjabi ex-military commander in Saat Hindustani (1969). This was Amitabh’s debut film and his own entry into Bollywood. .

But Dutt’s theater and Kendal associations had already made Dutt one of the trans-India stars for the Merchant and Ivory duo, playing the Maharaja in Shakespeare and Walaa (1965) and starring in The He played a noisy sitar maestro in “Guru” (1969) and also appeared in “Bombay Talkies” (1970).

He rose to national fame in Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Chaumet (1969), in which he played a “rulebook tyrant” who rediscovers his humanity after being cursed in the wilderness. This film brought him the National Award.

Over the next two decades, Dutt went on to star in many Bollywood and Tollywood films, ranging from cult classics to “masala” kitsch that sank without a trace. He later confessed that most of the films he did were for money and that he forgot the plot or even the name of the film after filming was over.

His swan song – as for Satyajit Ray – was Agantuk (1991), a masterful tale of fading family ties and trust, which was derived from the latter’s short story Atishi. It is. Before his death in August 1993, Dutt revealed that he treated the role as a “responsibility” because Ray had told him that the character of Manomohan Mitra was based on the author himself.