Sunil Dutt

Sunil Dutt
Dutt at his New Delhi office in 2005
Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports
In office 22 May 2004 – 25 May 2005
Prime Minister	Manmohan Singh
Preceded by	Vikram Verma
Succeeded by	Mani Shankar Aiyar
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
In office 1984–1996
Preceded by	Ram Jethmalani
Succeeded by	Madhukar Sarpotdar
Constituency	Mumbai North West
In office 1999–2005
Preceded by	Madhukar Sarpotdar
Succeeded by	Priya Dutt
Constituency	Mumbai North West
Personal details
Born	Balraj Dutt (1926-06-06)6 June 1926 Nakka Khurd, Punjab Province, British India[1][2] (present-day Punjab, Pakistan)
Died	25 May 2005(2005-05-25) (aged 78) Bandra West, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Cause of death	Heart attack
Nationality	Indian
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse(s)	Nargis ​ ​ (m. 1958; died 1981)​
Children	3 (including Sanjay Dutt and Priya Dutt)
Parents	Diwan Raghunath Dutt (father) Kulwanti Devi (mother)
Relatives	See Dutt family
Residence	Bandra, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Occupation	Actor Film producer Film director Politician
Awards	Padma Shri (1968)

Sunil Dutt (born Balraj Dutt; 6 June 1926 — 25 May 2005) was an Indian actor, film producer, director and politician.^[3] He was the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports in the Manmohan Singh government (2004–2005). He was a former Sheriff of Mumbai. He is the father of actor Sanjay Dutt and politician Priya Dutt.^[4]

In 1968, he was honoured by the Padma Shri by the Government of India.^[5] In 1984 he joined the Indian National Congress party and was elected to the Parliament of India for five terms from the constituency of Mumbai North West.^[6]

Early life[]

Sunil Dutt was born on 6 June 1926 in a Punjabi Hindu family as Balraj Dutt to father Diwan Raghunath Dutt and mother Kulwantidevi Dutt.^[3][7] in Nakka Khurd, Punjab Province, British India (now in Punjab, Pakistan).^[3][1][2] When he was five years old, Dutt's father died. When he was 18, the Partition of India began inciting Hindu-Muslim violence across the country. A Muslim friend of Dutt's father named Yakub, saved their entire family.^[8] The family resettled in the small village of Mandauli on the bank of the river Yamuna located in Yamuna Nagar, Punjab, which is now a district of Haryana. Later he moved to Lucknow with his mother, Kulwantidevi Dutt, and spent a long time in Aminabad during graduation. He then moved to Bombay (present-day Mumbai), where he joined Jai Hind College as an undergraduate and took up a job at the city's BEST Transportation Engineering division.^[3][9] He graduated with B.A. (Hons.) in History in 1954.^[3][10]

Early career[]

Starting out in radio, with his command over the Urdu language, Sunil Dutt was hugely popular on the Hindi service of Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia. He moved to act in Hindi films and got introduced to the industry in 1955's Railway Platform.

Film career[]

Actress Nargis tends to an injured Dutt on the sets of their film Mother India (1957) when the location caught fire

Debut and coining of the screen name "Sunil Dutt"[]

Director Ramesh Saigal was instrumental in giving Dutt a break in the film Railway Platform (1955) when the latter was hosting the show, Lipton Ki Mehfil on Radio Ceylon.^[11] While covering the Dilip Kumar film Shikast in 1953, Dutt met director Saigal, who impressed by his personality and voice, offered him a role in his upcoming film. Saigal came up with the new screen name "Sunil Dutt" for the debutante actor whose real name was Balraj Dutt to avoid name conflicts with the then veteran actor Balraj Sahni.^[12][13]

Rise to stardom[]

Dutt in 1958

Dutt shot to stardom in the 1957 film Mother India in which he co-starred with Nargis as her short-tempered, angry son. During the making of this film, a fire happened on the set. It is believed that Dutt braved the raging fire to save Nargis and thereby won her love. They went on to marry in 1958. They had one son Sanjay Dutt, also a successful film actor, and two daughters, Priya Dutt and Namrata Dutt. His daughter Namrata married Kumar Gaurav, son of Rajendra Kumar. The two fathers were co-stars in Mother India.

Dutt was one of the major stars of Hindi cinema in the late 1950s and 1960s and continued to star in many successful films which included Sadhna (1958), Insan Jaag Utha (1959), Sujata (1959), Mujhe Jeene Do (1963), Khandan (1965), Mera Saaya (1966) and Padosan (1967). His collaboration with B.R. Chopra proved to be successful in films such as Gumraah (1963), Waqt (1965) and Hamraaz (1967). One of his favourite writers and friends was Aghajani Kashmeri. Dutt made his directorial debut and was the only actor to feature in the 1964 film Yaadein. The film was featured in the Guinness Book of Records for Fewest Actors in a Narrative Film.^[14] He later produced the 1968 film which introduced his brother Som Dutt, Vinod Khanna and Leena Chandavarkar. In 1971, he produced, directed and starred in Reshma Aur Shera (1971) which was critically well received but a box office failure.

During the early 1970s, his career as an actor was at a stand-still. Admist this setback, he played Madhubala's hero in the 1971 film Jwala, which was a delayed film that had started production in the late 1950s and was Madhubala's last film. It was Geeta Mera Naam (1974) that brought him into the limelight again. The anti-hero was reborn after a long gap of films like Mother India and Mujhe Jeene Do. Sunil Dutt's performance of Johnny was liked by the masses as he clearly stole the limelight. It was one of the best performances of his career. He continued to star in hits that included Heera (1973), Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye (1974), Nagin (1976), Jaani Dushman (1979), Muqabla (1979), and Shaan (1980). He also starred in a series of Punjabi religious movies in the 1970s: Man Jeete Jag Jeet (1973), Dukh Bhanjan Tera Naam (1974), and Sat Sri Akal (1977).^[15] Even in 1980s he starred in both leading and supporting role in several successful movies such as Dard Ka Rishta (1982), Badle Ki Aag (1982), Raaj Tilak (1984), (1986), Watan Ke Rakhwale (1987) and Dharamyudh (1988).

He launched his son Sanjay's career with Rocky in 1981 which was a success. Shortly before the film's release, Nargis died of pancreatic cancer. He founded the Nargis Dutt Foundation in her memory for the curing of cancer patients.^[16] He was a sponsor of the India Project, an organisation akin to Operation Smile for the treatment of Indian children with facial deformities.^[17]

In 1982, he was appointed as the Sheriff of Bombay, an apolitical titular position bestowed on him by the Maharashtra government for a year.^[18]

He retired from the film industry in the early 1990s to turn to politics after his last few releases including Yash Chopra's Parampara (1992) and J.P. Dutta's Kshatriya (1993). His political career was halted for some years in the early 1990s when he worked to free his son from jail after he was arrested for keeping an AK-56 that he claimed was for the protection of his family after bomb blasts in Bombay.^[19]

In 1995, he won the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the film industry for four decades. He returned to acting shortly before his death in 2003's Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. in which he shared the screen with son Sanjay for the first time although they had appeared earlier in Rocky and Kshatriya but did not share any scenes together.

Death[]

Dutt at an event on 25 May 2004 (one year before his death)

Dutt died of a heart attack on 25 May 2005 at his residence in Bandra, Mumbai, two weeks before his 79th birthday,^[20] At the time of his death, he was the Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports in the Union Government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh and was the Member of Parliament from North-west Mumbai. He was cremated with full state honours at Santacruz Crematorium in Mumbai. He was succeeded as Minister by Mani Shankar Aiyar. His seat in the Parliament was contested by his daughter, Priya Dutt, who won it and was a Member of Parliament until May 2014.^[21]

In popular culture[]

Paresh Rawal played the role of Dutt in the biopic on his son titled Sanju (2018).^[22]

Awards and honours[]

• 1963 – Filmfare Best Actor Award for Mujhe Jeene Do
• 1964 – National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi for Yaadein
• 1965 – Filmfare Best Actor Award for Khandan
• 1967 – BFJA Awards for Best Actor (Hindi) for Milan^[23]
• 1968 – Padma Shri^[5]
• 1982 – Sheriff of Bombay
• 1995 – Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award
• 1998 – Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award^[24]
• 1999 – Screen Lifetime Achievement Award^[25]
• 2000 – Lifetime Achievement Award at the Anandalok Awards
• 2001 – Zee Cine Award for Lifetime Achievement
• Dutt was a recipient of the Glory of India Award by , London.^[26]

Filmography[]

As an Actor

See also[]

• Radio Ceylon
• List of Hindi broadcasters of Radio Ceylon

Further reading[]

• Mr. and Mrs. Dutt: Memories of our Parents, Namrata Dutt Kumar and Priya Dutt, 2007, Roli Books. ISBN 978-81-7436-455-5.^[27]
• Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt, Kishwar Desai. 2007, Harper Collins. ISBN 978-81-7223-697-7.

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sunil Dutt.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Sunil Dutt

• Sunil Dutt at IMDb