Dharmendra nearly quit Mumbai before becoming Hindi cinema's He-Man
A headmaster's son from a Punjab village, Dharmendra went to Mumbai with no contacts, failed, and took a job with a drilling company. A magazine talent hunt pulled him back, and a friend talked him out of leaving again. Across 65 years he made over 300 films and a record number of Hindi hits.
He was born on 8 December 1935 in Nasrali, in Punjab's Ludhiana district, and grew up in Sahnewal, attending the school where his father was headmaster. After the drilling job, he spotted an advertisement for the Filmfare talent contest and finished second; the winner, Suresh Puri, soon vanished from view. Even so, work stayed scarce, and fellow hopeful Manoj Kumar persuaded him not to give up.
His 1960 debut, Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere, went largely unnoticed, but hits followed, and in 1964 playing the villain in the blockbuster Ayee Milan Ki Bela got him noticed. Phool Aur Patthar topped the 1966 box office and made him a bankable star, and many regard his righteous hero in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Satyakam in 1969 as his finest work. When Rajesh Khanna's rise sank several careers, he and Dev Anand were the two actors seen as untouched.
Mera Gaon Mera Desh in 1971 fixed his image as an action hero, and a run of hits in 1972 put him at the top of his generation. The following year was his best: Jugnu was a blockbuster in India and the Soviet Union, and Yaadon Ki Baaraat, written by Salim-Javed, is widely called Indian cinema's first masala film, mixing genres in one package. He also formed a popular screen pairing with Hema Malini, whom he later married.
From the late 1990s he moved into character roles, received the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, and served one term in the Lok Sabha for Bikaner. He was given the Padma Bhushan in 2012, died on 24 November 2025, and was awarded the Padma Vibhushan posthumously in 2026.
Source: Dharmendra
