“Amitabh Bachchan Cried, People Said Who Is This Tall Idiot,” When Prakash Mehra Recalled How Zanjeer Shocked All [Including Raj Kapoor]

Amitabh Bachchan is currently the ‘Shehenshah’ of Indian Cinema but once upon a time, he was just a newcomer, trying to figure out a way to survive in the industry and waiting for that one film which would be appreciated and fare well at the box office. At the time when all of his films tanked at the box office, a man came to his rescue – Prakash Mehra!

The filmmaker changed Big B’s life by making him the Angry Young Man of Indian Cinema by offering him Zanjeer, a film written by Salim Javed and rejected by Dharmendra, Dev Anand, and others.

It was on Pran and Salim Javed’s insistence that Prakash Mehra cast Amitabh Bachchan after reviewing his work in Bombay To Goa. The rest, as they say, is history. However, the initial days of the film’s making, release, and distribution were difficult.

The filmmaker, in an interview with Rediff, once recalled, “There were no financiers, and the distributors ran away. They laughed at me, ‘Who is this tall idiot hero?’ Amitabh used to cry. He used to feel very put off.” Interestingly, Zanjeer clashed with Bobby at the box office. Prakash Mehra revealed that Raj Kapoor was shocked by the film’s success because there were only three songs in the film, a rarity in those days.

But the initial days for Zanjeer were tough, and it impacted Amitabh Bachchan to a great extent. In his interview from 1998, Prakash Mehra recalled, “The bad time the film was having affected Amitabh so badly that he went down with a fever. But after four days, when the booking for the second week began, I happened to pass through the Gaiety-Galaxy theatre in Bandra. There was a huge rush at the advance booking window. A five-rupee ticket was being sold at Rs 100. I was shocked. To this day, I have never seen such a huge rush outside Gaiety-Galaxy. When Amitabh heard the news, it affected him so much that his fever worsened to 104 degrees centigrade. He could not believe it. For now, he was a star.”

Amitabh Bachchan was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor that year but lost the award to Rishi Kapoor for Bobby (which Rishi ji later hinted at buying due to pressure, but we will leave that story for some other day)!

For more such throwbacks, stay tuned to Koimoi.

Must Read: Did Dharmendra Really Reject Zanjeer As Per Javed Akhtar’s Claim? Dharam Ji Once Took Shots, “Dikhaave Ki Is Duniya Mein…”

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