What did being a celebrity mean in the era before 24-hour TV and the Internet?
In Nasreen Munni Kabir’s Conversations with Waheeda Rehman, the actor recalls an incident during the filming of CID and Pyaasa, two films that would make her a star. “In those days, you could hire a victoria [a horse carriage] and ride along Marine Drive, and I remember telling my mother: ‘Mummy, before my movies are released, let’s go for a ride in a victoria because I won’t be able to do it later.’” Her mother, Rehman remembers, was rather displeased at this idea, thinking, “all this has gone to your head”.
Whether or not Rehman actually went for a ride in a victoria after the release of her first two films is perhaps not as important as her observation: “I was recognised but not mobbed. When CID and Pyaasa celebrated their silver jubilees, I did become very popular. But stars did not have as much exposure as they have today. There were only a few film magazines like Filmfare and Screen, and people were largely unaware of how we actors looked off-screen. Now you open any newspaper and you see whole sections dedicated to movie stars. The stars today have lost their freedom that actors of my generation had.”
In a young India, being a celebrity was perhaps more about being respected, rather than being mobbed. Of course, famous faces on the silver screen were recognised: Eager fans hung around for autographs and sent in fan-mail by the cartload. What did not exist was the celebrity culture of today—with intrusive tabloids, 24-hour news and music channels, unending brand endorsements and live events (from poll campaigns to award ceremonies)—that has made celebrities omnipresent.
Sunil Sikand, son of actor Pran, remembers an era when celebrities “did not take themselves so seriously.” “My father could walk anywhere, and get all the respect; no one would behave badly with him. Dilip Kumar saab would go to Bandra Book Centre, and everyone would treat him with respect. Not even a single bodyguard. The celebrity today has cut himself off from people. He is surrounded by guards. They are like politicians.”
Sikand narrates an incident when his father stopped by his usual bar after work one day. But that evening, he did not have his car. He came out, and a local young chap ran to get him a cab. “When my father gave him a tip, the chap said, ‘Saab, hum aapke film ka pehla show dekhta hai. Isse kya hoga? Ticket nahin milega’. This would never happen now, unless it was a photo-op, with four cars following him.”
Conversations with people within and outside the film industry piece together the picture of a time when fame sat easy on the shoulders of industry giants. Bhawana Somaaya, film journalist and author, says, “The stars of the 1950s and ’60s had the freedom to live the lives they wanted. They did the shootings at a leisurely pace. They packed up by dusk and returned home like normal people. It was a regular job.”
On outdoor shoots, she says, actors took their families (at least one family member) along. Sometimes, if the shoot was a long one, even the kids came along. Which is what Sikand remembers. “My father was shooting for Kashmir Ki Kali. We occupied a houseboat, along with Sharmila Tagore’s family. The second houseboat was shared among other crew members. It was like a picnic! The local people knew there was a shooting going on, and would gather when the camera was in place. But they never bothered any of the family members.” There was never the need to control unruly crowds either. “If the people were really noisy, someone on the sets would ask for silence, and the people respected that.”
This is not to say that star-struck locals did not throng the sets. Rinki Roy Bhattacharya, writer and documentary filmmaker, and daughter of director Bimal Roy, laughs over a story she came across while researching for her book Bimal Roy’s Madhumati: Untold Stories from Behind the Scenes. “During the outdoor shoot of Madhumati in a little place called Bhowali, near Ghorakhal [in Uttarakhand], there was a young girl who heard that Dilip Kumar was in the vicinity. She got so excited that she ran out of her house to catch a glimpse of him, forgetting her dupatta behind, thus creating a minor scandal. I met another local resident who recalled how there would be traffic jams in the sleepy village during the shoot.” The girl, however, did manage to get a photograph of herself (and some other equally enamoured girls) clicked with her favourite star.
Ameen Sayani, the golden voice that had the country enthralled for decades with Binaca Geetmala, chuckles over an incident in 1957: “Once, a girl—at least I thought she was a girl—wrote to me, and got so friendly that she sent me a beautiful shawl. I was very embarrassed, and announced it on the radio, saying she should not send me such things because I am married and my wife would blow her top if she came to know about it. Soon, another letter of hers arrived, saying, ‘Beta Ameen, do you know how old I am? I am old enough to be your mother!’”
John’s account of Raj Kapoor’s Holi bash indeed paints a colourful picture: “I hated the festival, but I decided to go because first of all, it was my job that mattered and secondly because I always wanted to have a feel of what the most-talked-about Holi celebration in Bombay was all about. I reached the gates of RK Studios and before I could look up, I was welcomed with three buckets full of coloured water. I did not expect this, I was almost blinded when Randhir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor and two other men carried me and flung me into a pool of coloured water. I stumbled and turned thrice in the pool, gasped for breath and called out for help, but no one was listening. I was finally pulled out by Rishi Kapoor who pushed two bottles of beer in my hands which I finished in 20 minutes flat… Raj Kapoor was sitting with his wife, Krishna, completely drunk before noon, all covered with colour of every kind, embracing people whoever they were, dancing with the well-known Kathak dancer Sitara Devi and generally having a good time. I went up to him to seek his blessings. He embraced me and ruffled my hair without caring to know who I was, and then asked some men to throw me into the pool again.”
“Earlier, film actors would get together for dinner, even amid their really busy schedules, and go to restaurants like Gayland or Gazebo,” says Rikkuji. “Gradually, that feeling of closeness went away.”
(This story appears in the 26 December, 2014 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)