Rajesh Khanna was born to rule, and his acting chops made him the “first superstar” of Indian cinema. Many wouldn’t know, but his debut film, Aakhri Khat, was India’s first official entry at the Academy Awards (1966). Javed Akhtar is now revisiting the old days and claims the late actor was difficult to work with, which led to Amitabh Bachchan stealing the spotlight. Scroll below for all the details!
The Aradhana actor passed away in July 2012 due to cancer. He had achieved many career milestones before his death at 69. Rajesh is the only Hindi actor to have starred in 106 films as the solo lead hero. Apart from his tremendous acting chops, he also made a lot of noise over his breakup with Anju Mahendru, his divorce from Dimple Kapadia, and his alleged affair with Tina Munim.
In an interview with the SAM YouTube channel, Javed Akhtar said Rajesh Khanna was once the biggest star in Bollywood. However, the stardom was temporary and lasted for a “short period” until Amitabh Bachchan stole the limelight with his skills.
Javed Akhtar said, “Those were the times when a child born in India would say ‘Rajesh Khanna’ first and then ‘mumma, papa’. But it was a short period. Someone, there came a time when we realised that it would be difficult for us to work together because he was surrounded by so many people, so many sycophants and yes men, it was difficult to work with him. So, we parted ways. Then we became friendly, and we did a film also much later. But the kind of films that we were writing, and the kind of films that we had in our mind, were much more suitable for an actor like Amitabh Bachchan although he was at that time not a superstar, to say the least, but he was an unbelievably good actor.”
The Bollywood lyricist also praised Amitabh Bachchan for his natural acting and competence. He also showered positive words for Dilip Kumar and said he was also a very versatile actor. The duo, Salim-Javed, had worked with Rajesh Khanna on multiple films, as they wrote scripts for films like Andaz and Haathi Mere Saathi. They also worked with Amitabh Bachchan on Sholay, Don and Deewar.
