Danny Denzongpa
Name: Danny Denzongpa
Birthdate: 25th February, 1948
Zodiac: Pisces
Marital Status: Danny is married to Gawa Denzongpa who hailed from Sikkim and both of them presently reside in Juhu, Mumbai. They have a son by the name of Rinzing and a daughter called Prerna.
Awards:
1) In the year 2003, Danny Denzongpa was bestowed with the prestigious Padma Shree honour which is the fourth highest civilian honour in India.
2) In the year 1992, he won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor award for his role in Saawan Kumar Tak’s ‘Sanam Bewafa’, starring Salman Khan, Chandni, Kanchan and Pran.
3) The following year he won a similar award for Mukul S. Anand’s ‘Khuda Gawah’.
4) Previously, Danny had also been nominated for numerous awards including the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Awards for ‘Devtaa’, ‘Kanoon Kya Karega’, ‘Agneepath’ in the year 1979, 1985 and 1990 respectively.
5) He had also received nominations in the Filmfare Best Villain category for ‘Hum’, ‘Krantiveer’, ‘Vijaypath’, ‘Barsaat’, ‘Ghatak’ in the year 1992, 1995, 1995, 1996 and 1997 respectively.
Biography: Danny Denzongpa was born in the Indian state of Sikkim on the 25th of February in the year 1948 as Tshering Phintso Denzongpa. At a ripe age, Danny had a craze about riding horses as his parents used to breed horses.He did his early-schooling at Sikkim and later on in the year 1965 he completed his education from the prestigious Birla Vidya Mandir situated in Nainital, Uttarakhand.Ever since his childhood Danny had an ambition of joining the Indian Army. The West Bengal government gave him the Best Cadet Award. He had been selected for a seat at the famous Armed Forces Medical College situated in Pune but then, he withdrew admission in order to get himself enrolled in the prestigious Film and Television Institute (FTII) in Pune.
Jaya Bhaduri, the actress was also his batchmate at the institute gave him the simpler name of ‘Danny’ as ‘Tshering Phintso Denzongpa’ was a tough name to pronounce for all the other students of his batch.
Early in his career, he used to learn the art of speaking in Hindi by conversing with the ocean, although the Urdu which he knew came to much use in movies like ‘Khuda Gawah’ by Mukul S. Anand and ‘Sanam Bewafa’, by Sawan Kumar.
In the 70s, Danny used to sign up for smaller roles and his performances in these films did bring him under the lime light.His very first film was a B-grade film called ‘Zaroorat’, directed by B. R. Chopra. Next up he appeared in ‘Mere Apne’ (1971), ‘Yeh Gulistan Humara’ (1972), ‘Rakhi Aur Hathkadi’ (1972), ‘Milap’ (1972), ‘Khoon Khoon’ (1973). In 1973 he played the major role of Thakur Ranjit Singh, a crippled husband to a wife, in B. R. Chopra’s ‘Dhund’, starring Sanjay Khan, Zeenat Aman and Ashok Kumar. In the year 1979 he starred in Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘Lahu Ke Do Rang’, starring Vinod Khanna, Shabana Azmi and Helen. Here Danny played the role of a diver by the name of Suraj and his performance was greatly appreciated by all and soon after the success of this film, he started getting job offers for more important and lengthy roles. Next up throughout the 80s and 90s, he mostly played the primary negative roles opposite eminent actors such as Sunny Deol, Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Jeetendra and Mithun Chakraborty. Some of these films include ‘Pukar’ (2000), ‘Krantiveer’ (1994), ‘Ghatak’, ‘Hum’ (1992), ‘Agneepath’ (1990), ‘Bhagwan Dada’ (1986), ‘Andhi Toofan’ (1986) and ‘Andar Baahar’ (1984). Most of the negative roles which he played were that of a mingy landlord, a corrupt police officer, a traitor, unscrupulous politician and several other antihero roles.
Danny was also the primary choice to have played the role of icon Gabbar Singh in the epic movie, ‘Sholay’, but since Danny was busy on the sets of Feroz Khan’s ‘Dharmatma’, the role of Gabbar eventually went to actor Amjad Khan.
Besides acting, Danny is also an accomplished singer and he had shared the singing platform with eminent singers such as Asha Bhonsle, Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi. Danny had sung numerous songs in Nepalese for a number of Nepalese films. Two of his most popular songs include “Manko kura lai bandhi narakha” (meaning “Do not keep the words of the heart tied”) and “Chiso Chiso Hawama” (meaning “In the cool air”). In the year 1987, Danny starred in the hit Nepali film titled ‘Saino’, directed by Ugyan Chopel. Apart from acting Danny had also wriiten the story of this film and had also sung most of the songs of this film including “Suna Katha Euta Geet”, “Aamai Le Bhanthey Dhara Ko Paani” and “Jyaurey”. ‘Saino’ waslater remade in Hindi as ‘Ajnaabi’, a doordarshan telefilm.
In the last decade he gave some stupendous performances in films like ’16 December’ (2002) and ‘Asoka’. He had also starred alongside Aishwariya Rai Bachchan and Rajinikanth in Shankar’s Tamil flick ‘Enthiran’. Here he enacted the negative role of a scientist by the name of Bohra who implants a chip inside Chitti and converts him (which was played by actor Rajinikanth) into a destructive and evil robot. This film was a commercial success and his performance in the film was very well appreciated by the audience as well as by the critics.
He had even starred an international project, a film tiled ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. Here Danny shared the screen with Brad Pitt, David Thwelis, B.D. Wong, Mako, Victor Wong, Jetsun Pema, Lhakpa Tsamchoe, Ingeborga Dapkunaite and Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk.
Some of his upcoming releases include ‘Boss’ (2013) directed by Anthony D’Souza and starring Akshay Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty, Ronit Roy and Shiv Pandit. This film would be hitting the theatres on the 16th of October in the year 2013. He would also be appearing in Sohail Khan’s ‘Mental : For A Cause’, starring Salman Khan, Sana Khan, Daisy Shah and Tabu in the primary roles. He has also signed up for Siddharth Anand’s 2014 project, ‘Bang Bang’ starring Hrithik Roshan, Katrina Kaif and Javed Jaffrey.
