Today Mumbai’s film actors have wised up to the fact that fame and fortune don’t last forever. Several yesteryear doom-laden stories, now stand out as cautionary warnings, writes Khalid Mohamed.

This essay examines Bollywood’s long history of faded stardom, financial ruin, and forgotten legends, contrasting past tragedies with today’s cautious, business-minded actors. Through poignant examples, it highlights how fame is temporary and survival now depends on foresight, discipline, and self-preservation.

At long last, around the turn of the millennium, Mumbai’s film community of actors has become more than aware that sunny days don’t last for a lifetime. Moreover, despite ceaseless reported instances of drug abuse and wild abandon at rave parties, concurrently the fitness gyms have become the place-to-go-to, a lesson imbibed from the previous generations for whom gyms didn’t figure on their weekly calendar.

More importantly, the first step on achieving popularity --be it in feature films or web series-- is to invest in a house followed by initiating business start-ups and bank fixed deposits, to ensure that they never have to deal with a life-altering down-curve.

It's rare if not impossible now to hear of fortunes being blown up in gambling, alcoholic binges, contracts and documents signed blindly, and random indulgences.

The Sensible Present Versus The Reckless Past

Today, it is better to be secure than sorry. To cite a few examples, Manoj Bajpayee, Pankaj Tripathi, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui – who reside in a palace-like mansion now -- and Jaideep Ahlawat who joined show business from a humble background, are never likely to face the darker side of the tinsel moon. They lead comfortable but unshowy lives.

As for the A-listers, their value calculated in multiple crores, is in demand and even given a sizeable share in a film’s profits. In case of a disastrous flop, that passes in a flash, since their current fees aren’t affected.

In retrospect, by contrast, hard luck stories have abounded in the past. The most heart-wrenching story relates to the legendary Meena Kumari, reportedly addicted to alcoholism, who could never be herself again after her separation from Kamal Amrohi, for whom she albeit completed the classic Pakeezah. Her hospital and burial rites expenses (at a Shia Muslim graveyard in keeping with Amrohi’s faith) were covertly paid for by an actor, whom she had promoted to the dizzying heights of stardom.

Similarly exceedingly popular actors of the 1940s and ‘50s, were reduced to dire poverty. Bhagwan Dada, the livewire of Albela, lived in a shambles of a Dadar chawl, having lost his fleet of cars and financial assets after his debts incurred in gambling and betting at the racecourse, ‘womanising’ as he called it, besides being cheated by acolytes who pretended to serve as his managers and agents.

Pradeep Kumar, who once incarnated Mughal princes and assorted royalty, too, faded into a shadow of no return.

When Help Came Too Late

Perhaps the last time you heard of actors pleading for financial aid from the Cine and TV Artistes’ Association, with their limited resources -- are of the comedienne Manorama, and Rehana Sultan the sensation of the 1970s, who married producer-director B.R. Ishara. On being widowed, fortuitously, she could somehow continue to maintain her apartment in Juhu, which she had bought at the insistence of writer-lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri.

And it was through public funding that B. Subhash, producer-director of the major hit Disco Dancer had to raise the expenses for his wife’s surgery.

Similarly, monetary aid had to be rushed to the yesteryear actress Smriti Biswas – pixie-like actress who had worked with in the films of Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt and Bimal Roy to retire on marrying producer-director S.D. Narang -- had retreated into anonymity in a minuscule Nashik home. A fund-raising appeal was personally initiated by director Hansal Mehta. She passed away in 2024 at the age of 100.

Plus who can forget that earlier it was after newspaper interviews that nationwide donations poured in for the critically ill veteran actor A.K. Hangal?

Likewise, after a news report, donations from corporate groups and individuals poured in for the music maestro Vanraj Bhatia, who had lost his savings in the stock market. In his 90s, the creator of hundreds of ad jingles and scores of memorable music scores especially for Shyam Benegal, couldn’t afford a doctor, sinking his bitterness by knocking himself out, early afternoons, by downing cheap vodka. Benegal had remarked, “Vanraj has become stubborn, whatever is sent to him monthly, he squanders without thinking of his age-related ailments.”

Out Of Sight, Out Of Memory

Once out of the limelight, it’s out of mind. Public memory is on a short fuse. Only the rare nostalgiaphile cares to expend a passing thought for the men and women who once entertained them for the price of a ticket. Kahan gaye woh log indeed! Forgotten songs are rescued from the audio archives and are hummed all over again as bhule bisre geet.

Sadly yesterday’s stars of the 1940s-‘60s – mega and mini -- are mere curiosities on the re-runs of the golden oldies on telly. Kukoo, whose dances launched countless films, besides being a mentor to Helen, chose to survive on her own terms in isolation, rather than seek hand-outs.

And once I had contacted Chitra (Afsar Unissa Begum), famously known for Homi Wadia’s Zimbo, playing Jane to a Tarzan, enacted by the scarcely remembered, Azad, had agreed to a photo-shoot for The Illustrated Weekly of India. The photographer returned crestfallen, she wouldn’t remove a black veil from her face, ravaged evidently by age. She passed away, without the film industry barely noticing in 2006.

Personal Encounters With Vanishing Stars

For a movie geek, there has been a sense of loss too over film personalities who disappeared from the corridors of the heart – without so much as a by-your leave. Like Nivedita, a porcelain beauty, who featured with Sanjeev Kumar in the black-and-white Jyoti. Initially, assigned the screen name of Liby Rana, she was a woman of grace.

When I ran into Nivedita at a roadside book stall, I summoned up the courage to tell her that I recognized her. She insisted, “No, no, you’ve mistaken me for someone else.” On sensing my disappointment, she had conceded, “Okay yes, I was in the movies once. It was fun but there comes a stage when you can’t hang on unless you want to suffer on a Sunset Boulevard.”

Parmendra, a bhakt of Dharmendra, danced and sang with top heroines like Mala Sinha in Holi Aaee Re..but when it flopped, like almost every film he touched, the robust hero returned to the Punjab wheatfields.

Tariq the spry guitar strummer of Yaadon ki Baarat and Vijay Arora, a Pune Film and Television Institute graduate, also in the baarat-naama, faded into obscurity.

Sameer Khan, blood brother to Feroz, Sanjay and Akbar Khan, was believed to have moved to Dubai. Very few if anyone recollects his rendezvous with Simi Garewal in the breezy but underappreciated film Pasand Apni Apni and Saawan Kumar Tak’s overwrought Gomti ke Kinare, with Meena Kumari and Mumtaz.

There were the unconventional heroines, too, who didn’t look like Barbie dolls, but who could act up a storm. Director Kishore Sahu’s daughter Naina Sahu looking quite Mick Jaggerish in Hare Kaanch ki Chooriyan and Vasant Joglekar’s daughter Meera in Ek Kali Muskayee, scored a single hit. Full stop.

Oomphy magazine cover girls of the sexy ‘70s could give the Nora Fatehis a run for their money. Like Komilla Wirk who is said to be settled in Europe today, working round the zodiac list as a fortune teller. Faryal, the former airhostess, who figured as a heroine with Shashi Kapoor in Biradari, is but a hazy memory.

Nita Khayani, Shirley MacLaine to Amitabh Bachchan’s Jack Lemmon in The Apartment remake, Raaste ka Patthar, is a mystery.

Poignantly, there are no records of Vimi, who was alleged to have been murdered just the way she was in her conundrum of a performance in B.R. Chopra’s Humraaz. News reports stated that she had to be carried in a handcart by strangers for her final funeral rites.

Sunset Boulevard As Warning, Not Fate

Truly, once there was no business-like show business – here today, gone tragically with the wind tomorrow. Fortunately, those stories of fading out on a Sunset Boulevard today serve as cautionary signboards.

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