48 Fun Facts About Raj Kapoor

Raj Kapoor is often called the Indian version of which Hollywood star?

Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp gave Kapoor his best-known persona: a shabby, cheerful vagabond whose honesty in a crooked world won him audiences far beyond India.

In which city was Raj Kapoor born in 1924?

Peshawar, now in Pakistan, was only his first home: his father's stage career kept the family on the move, and Raj went to school in three different cities.

Which fellow superstar grew up in the same neighbourhood as Raj Kapoor and remained his lifelong friend?

Dilip Kumar was born two years earlier in the same old quarter; the boyhood friends became the great rival stars of 1950s Hindi cinema and shared the screen only once, in Andaz.

Which two younger brothers of Raj Kapoor also became major film actors?

Shammi and Shashi followed him by different roads: Shashi began as a child, playing the boyhood version of Raj's own characters in two of his early films, while Shammi broke through as a dancing star.

Raj Kapoor's first leading role, in 1947's Neel Kamal, paired him with which future superstar actress?

Madhubala was just 14 and it was her first adult lead too; the film did little business, yet within a few years both were among the biggest stars in India.

What was the name of the production banner Raj Kapoor founded in 1948?

R. K. Films took its famous emblem from a scene in its first hit: Kapoor with a violin in one hand and his leading lady swooning on his other arm.

Which 1948 film marked Raj Kapoor's debut as a director?

Aag won praise but little money for its 24-year-old director; its lasting gift was the first pairing of Kapoor and Nargis, the screen couple who would define the next decade of Hindi film.

Which 1949 film, the second Raj Kapoor directed, gave his new studio its first hit?

Barsaat, a rain-soaked double love story, made his studio's name, and its songs did the same for a young playback singer called Lata Mangeshkar, who sang for both heroines.

Which composer duo did Raj Kapoor launch in 1949 and keep for most of his films over the next two decades?

Shankar-Jaikishan were unknowns when he handed them the music for the second film he directed; the gamble paid off, and they scored his productions for more than twenty years.

Which writer of Awaara, Shree 420 and Bobby also launched Amitabh Bachchan's screen career?

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas wrote Awaara for another director and took the script to Kapoor after they fell out over casting; as a director himself he cast the unknown Bachchan in Saat Hindustani.

Who played Judge Raghunath, who disowns Raj, in Awaara?

Prithviraj Kapoor was Raj's real father: the man who disowns him on screen had starred in the films that gave Raj his first parts as a boy, and here took direction from his own son.

Outside India, in which country did Awaara make Raj Kapoor a household name in the 1950s?

Soviet Union: released there in 1954, the film drew tens of millions of viewers in its first run, and its vagabond hero kept Kapoor's films popular with Soviet audiences for decades.

Which Raj Kapoor production won its child actress a special mention at Cannes in 1955?

Boot Polish follows a brother and sister who choose to shine shoes rather than beg; Kapoor produced it, and the Cannes jury singled out its child actress, Naaz, for her performance.

Who sang 'Awaara Hoon', the song that made Raj Kapoor a star from Turkey to China?

Mukesh was Kapoor's singing voice in film after film, a bond so close that when the singer died in 1976 Kapoor is said to have felt he had lost a part of himself.

In Shree 420, Raj's country boy travels from Allahabad to which city, on foot?

Bombay first tempts him: he loves a poor, honest schoolteacher but is seduced by the easy money of a crooked businessman, and the film turns on which of the two he will choose.

Which 2016 Hollywood film plays the Shree 420 song 'Mera Joota Hai Japani' near its beginning?

Deadpool borrows a song that India has treasured since 1955: its chorus, about wearing foreign clothes over an Indian heart, became a patriotic anthem of the newly independent country.

The '420' in the title Shree 420 comes from the section of India's penal code that deals with which offence?

Cheating: Section 420 covers fraud, so the title means roughly 'Mr Fraudster', and '420' has passed into everyday Indian speech as a word for a con man.

For which 1959 comedy did Raj Kapoor win his first Filmfare Award for Best Actor?

Anari was neither produced nor directed by him: Filmfare first named him Best Actor for playing another director's honest simpleton, not one of the heroes of his own celebrated films.

Raj Kapoor's 1960 film Chhalia was based on a story by which Russian novelist?

Fyodor Dostoevsky's tale of a lonely dreamer, 'White Nights', was moved from St Petersburg to India after Partition, where the hero shelters a wife cut off from her family in the upheaval.

Which 1964 hit was Raj Kapoor's first film in colour, with honeymoon scenes shot across Europe?

Sangam, a love triangle between two friends and the woman they both love, was a huge hit and his last success as a leading man; the starring roles that followed it later in the decade flopped.

Mera Naam Joker ran for more than four hours; how did Indian cinemas show it?

With two intervals: the film tells three stories end to end, each almost a feature in itself, so audiences were given two breaks instead of the usual one.

Each of Mera Naam Joker's three chapters is built around what?

A lost love: his schoolteacher, a visiting trapeze artist and an ambitious actress each move on, and years later all three are invited to watch his farewell performance.

Which of Raj Kapoor's sons made his screen debut playing the young Raju in Mera Naam Joker?

Rishi won a National Film Award for the part while still in his teens, and three years later the same director, his father, turned him into a teenage heart-throb.

Which actress made her debut opposite Raj Kapoor's son in Bobby (1973)?

Dimple Kapadia became a star overnight, but she had married the superstar Rajesh Khanna shortly before the release and given up acting; she stayed away from the screen for more than a decade.

Raj Kapoor's Bobby was inspired by which American comics?

Archie comics shaped the film's look as well as its mood: its young heroine recalled Kapoor restyling her hairline and ordering all her clothes from abroad to match.

By its young leading man's own account, why did Raj Kapoor really make Bobby?

To clear Mera Naam Joker's debts: the film's young star said his father wanted a teenage love story but could not afford a superstar like Rajesh Khanna, so he got the lead 'by default'.

In Raj Kapoor's Bobby, the teenage heroine is the daughter of what?

A Goan Christian fisherman, proud and quick-tempered: when the rich boy's father accuses him of using his daughter to trap the boy for money and offers a bribe, the two families fall out.

Raj Kapoor's 1978 film Satyam Shivam Sundaram, starring Zeenat Aman, drew accusations of what?

Promoting obscenity was the charge, yet the fable preaches the opposite of skin-deep love: its hero adores a veiled woman by night and shuns his scarred wife by day, not knowing they are one.

Which 1985 film, starring newcomer Mandakini and his son Rajiv, was Raj Kapoor's last as director?

Ram Teri Ganga Maili names its heroine Ganga and sends her, like the river, from its pure mountain birthplace at Gangotri down to Calcutta, preyed on by men at every stage of the journey.

Which unfinished Raj Kapoor love story was completed by his sons and released in 1991?

Henna, a romance across the India-Pakistan border, was still in the making when he died: his eldest son directed it, his second son starred, and a Pakistani actress played the title role.

Whom did Raj Kapoor marry in 1946, a marriage that lasted until his death?

Krishna Malhotra brought a film clan of her own into the family: her brothers Prem Nath and Rajendra Nath became well-known actors, and her sister married the screen villain Prem Chopra.

Which 1956 comedy was the last film to star Raj Kapoor and Nargis as a romantic pair?

Chori Chori, a runaway-heiress comedy borrowed from Hollywood's It Happened One Night, closed the partnership; her only later appearance beside him was a brief cameo that same year.

Whom did Nargis marry in 1958?

Sunil Dutt played her son in Mother India, and is said to have won her heart by pulling her out of a fire that broke out on the set.

Under what name was Nargis born in 1929?

Fatima Rashid was put before a camera at five by her mother, the singer and film-maker Jaddanbai, and had taken the screen name Nargis by her first adult lead in her teens.

Which of Raj Kapoor's granddaughters became leading Bollywood actresses?

Karisma and Kareena are the daughters of his eldest son and the actress Babita; with their cousin, his second son's boy, they carried the family's stardom into a fourth generation.

Raj Kapoor's father acted in which landmark Indian film of 1931?

Alam Ara was India's first sound film, and after years in silent pictures it let his father show off what became his greatest asset: a powerful, booming voice.

Raj Kapoor's father played the emperor Akbar in which historical epic of 1960?

Mughal-e-Azam gave his father the role he is best remembered for: an emperor who goes to war with his own rebellious son over the prince's love for a court dancer.

What was the cause of Raj Kapoor's death in 1988?

Complications of asthma, which had dogged his last years, killed him at 63 after about a month in a Delhi hospital, leaving the film he was preparing for his family to finish.

Where did Raj Kapoor collapse shortly before his death?

At the Dadasaheb Phalke Award ceremony the President saw that he was too unwell to come up, broke protocol and walked down to present India's highest film honour at his seat; soon afterwards Kapoor collapsed.

Raj Kapoor's Chembur studio was known across the film world for the family's lavish yearly celebration of which spring festival?

Holi at his studio was open house for the whole film industry, crew as well as stars, and guests could expect to be tossed into a tank of coloured water before the day was out.

The Kapoor family memorial stands on Rajbaugh, the farm where Raj Kapoor shot parts of Bobby, near which city?

Pune: the riverside farm east of the city is now part of a university campus, which kept the family bungalow where the Bobby song 'Hum Tum Ek Kamre Mein Band Ho' was filmed.

In Jagte Raho, Raj Kapoor's thirsty villager is hunted through an apartment block all night after being mistaken for what?

A thief: all he wants is a drink of water, yet as he hides from the mob he watches the respectable residents commit crimes of their own; the film won the top prize at Karlovy Vary.

In Raj Kapoor's 1982 hit Prem Rog, the hero defies village tradition by falling in love with whom?

A young widow of the landlord's own family, whom custom condemns to a life of mourning; his fight for her brings down the wrath of the clan that rules the village.

Raj Kapoor and Nargis share one umbrella in the rain during which Shree 420 song?

Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua: the toddler who walks past in the downpour is Kapoor's own son, who later said he would only do the shot after Nargis bribed him with chocolate.

Which of these present-day Bollywood stars named Kapoor is Raj Kapoor's grandson?

Ranbir Kapoor carries his grandfather's own first name: Raj Kapoor was Ranbir Raj in full, and the name was handed on to the son of his second son.

Which railway-workshop apprentice turned poet wrote the words of 'Awaara Hoon' and 'Mera Joota Hai Japani' for Raj Kapoor?

Shailendra was reciting at a poetry gathering when Kapoor offered to buy his poem; wary of commercial films, he said no, and came back only later, when he needed money for his pregnant wife.

Raj Kapoor's 1971 film Kal Aaj Aur Kal was notable for what casting?

Three generations of Kapoors played grandfather, father and son, as they were in life; the youngest, Randhir, also directed, and his future wife Babita played his sweetheart.

What became of Raj Kapoor's Chembur film studio after a fire in 2017?

Sold to a property developer: his eldest son called selling the fire-damaged studio 'the need of the hour', and within two years the land had passed to the Godrej group.