The changing face of the male superstar

INDEPENDENCE SPECIAL/ ENTERTAINMENT

When India got its independence, the nearest thing to a matinee idol was Ashok Kumar, who had progressed from his gawky, shy-young-lad-with-the-nasal-voice origins to the urbane city slicker of films like Kismet (1943).

The word "superstar" was not widely bandied about at the time, but this would change in the early 1950s with the rise of a triumvirate of actors, says Jai Arjun Singh.

Dilip, Dev, Raj
The classification is all-too-easy: Dilip Kumar was the tragedy king, the doom of unrequited love shining in his eyes; Raj Kapoor the Chaplinesque tramp with a heart of gold and a brave smile; and Dev Anand the sophisticated romantic lead who modelled himself on Gregory Peck.

But interestingly, despite Kapoor's reputation as one of Indian cinema's greatest showmen, and the fact that Kumar's name repeatedly crops up whenever a young performer is asked about his acting idols, it's the underrated Anand (taken least seriously as an actor during his own time) whose early work holds up wonderfully well today.

Comedy and lightness of touch are under-appreciated qualities in film acting, but Anand's best work compares very favourably to Dilip Kumar's, and he lasted much longer (so what if most of his post-1980s films were dreadful).

Shammi Kapoor
Bollywood's next superstar was a master of the art of physical comedy. Utterly unselfconscious about himself, never concerned about such things as looking dignified or hero-like, Shammi Kapoor gave even jiggly item girls like Helen a run for their money with his outrageous dance sequences; clad even in a constraining three-piece suit, he could do things with his body that a seasoned belly dancer would be hard put to emulate. And yes, he was a more than efficient dramatic actor too, when required to be.

Rajesh Khanna
For anyone who wasn't actually there to see it, it's difficult to understand all the fuss about Rajesh Khanna's relatively brief period of superstardom; to comprehend that his popularity at its very peak was probably even greater than Amitabh Bachchan's was at any one time. But the thousands of letters written in blood tell their own story. Khanna, in 1969-70, was as big as Beatlemania.

Amitabh Bachchan
Anything one could say about AB here would be redundant, but here's a point worth making: beneath the Angry Young Man persona was concealed one of the finest, most underrated romantic actors of all time.

When Laurence Olivier played a raw, intense Romeo on the stage, a critic pointed out that while other actors doing the role seemed to be in love with Shakespeare's verse, Olivier's Romeo was palpably in love with Juliet.

The same quality is on display in Amitabh's scenes with his leading ladies; compare it with the other, more obviously "romantic" heroes and you'll see the difference.

Shah Rukh Khan
It's too early to comment on SRK's legacy, but he has changed the face of the leading man in some obvious ways: first, in the somewhat superficial sense of playing a morally ambiguous anti-hero in his early films and then later, more significantly, by overturning the anti-authoritarian stance of Amitabh's Vijay.

In Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Rahul's refusal to elope with his girlfriend without taking her father's permission marked a break with everything the previous superstar had stood for.

Of course, nothing is ever so cut-and-dried, and in his most recent roles SRK has played 1) an even more irreverent version of Amitabh's Don, and 2) an unlikable, whiny loser who has an extra-marital affair with another unlikable, whiny loser. No doubt more shades of grey will be revealed in the future, even as Hrithik Roshan waits his turn in the wings.