Dilip

He was one of the twelve children of Lala Ghulam Sarwar Ali Khan (1890–1950) and his wife Ayesha Begum (1897–1948).

His father was a fruit merchant.

Khan was schooled at the Barnes School in Deolali (now in Maharashtra), where his father owned orchards.

He grew up in the same neighbourhood in Peshawar as Raj Kapoor, his childhood friend, and later his colleague in the film industry.

Dilip Kumar (born Mohammed Yusuf Khan; 11 December 1922 – 7 July 2021) was an Indian actor who worked in Hindi cinema.

Dilip Kumar was born as Mohammad Yusuf Khan on 11 December 1922, into a Awan Hindkowan Muslim family at his family home in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar neighbourhood of Peshawar, a city in the North-West Frontier Province of British India.

Credited with pioneering method acting in cinema, after Motilal, he dominated the Indian cinema from late 1940s throughout 60s, being referred to as Abhinay Samrat (Hindi for "Emperor of Acting").

Kumar holds the record for most wins for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor (eight, which was later equalled by Shah Rukh Khan) and was also the inaugural recipient of the award.

He holds the most dominant box-office record for a star (male or female) in Hindi cinema with over 80% box-office successes and several long-standing gross records.

In a career spanning over five decades, Kumar worked in less than 60 films in a variety of roles.

In 1940, he moved to Pune and set up a dry fruit supply shop and a canteen.

He debuted as an actor in the film Jwar Bhata (1944), produced by Bombay Talkies.

Khan never acted under his birth name, debuting in Jwar Bhata in 1944 under the stage name Dilip Kumar.

In his autobiography, Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow, he wrote that the name was a suggestion from Devika Rani, who was one of the producers on Jwar Bhata.

Kumar's first film was Jwar Bhata in 1944, which went unnoticed.

Following a series of unsuccessful ventures, he had his first box office hit in Jugnu (1947).

Despite hailing from Peshawar, Khan's family decided to remain in Bombay following the Partition of the India in 1947.

After two more unsuccessful films, it was his fourth film Jugnu (1947), in which he starred alongside Noor Jehan, that became his first major hit at the box office.

His next major hits were the 1948 films Shaheed and Mela.

Both Jugnu and Shaheed were the highest grossing Hindi films of their respective year of release.

Kumar found further success with the romantic drama Andaz (1949), the swashbuckling Aan (1952), the social drama Daag (1952), the actioner Insaniyat (1955), the comical Azaad (1955), the romantic social Naya Daur (1957), the noir mystery Madhumati (1958), the social drama Paigham (1959), the action adventure Kohinoor (1960), the epic historical Mughal-E-Azam (1960), the crime drama Gunga Jumna (1961), and the comedy drama Ram Aur Shyam (1967).

All three Andaz, Aan and Naya Daur briefly became the highest-grossing Indian films up to that point, a feat later achieved by Mughal-e-Azam, which sustained the record for 15 years.

He got his breakthrough role as an actor in 1949 with Mehboob Khan's Andaz, in which he starred alongside Raj Kapoor and Nargis.

At the time of its release, Andaz was the highest-grossing Indian film ever, until its record was broken by Kapoor's Barsaat that same year.

Shabnam was another box office hit that was also released in 1949.

The 1950s was Kumar's most successful and prolific decade with him playing leading roles in several box office hits such as Jogan (1950), Babul (1950), Deedar (1951), Tarana (1951), Daag (1952), Aan (1952), Uran Khatola (1955), Insaniyat (1955), Devdas (1955), Naya Daur (1957), Yahudi (1958), Madhumati (1958) and Paigham (1959).

He formed popular on-screen pairings with many of the top actresses at the time including Vyjayanthimala, Madhubala, Nargis, Nimmi, Meena Kumari and Kamini Kaushal.

He was in a long-term relationship with actress and frequent co-star Madhubala that ended after the Naya Daur court case in 1957.

He married actress Saira Banu in 1966 and resided in Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai, until his death in 2021.

The 1970s saw Kumar's career take a downturn, marked by three consecutive commercial failures, namely Dastaan (1972), Sagina (1974) and Bairaag (1976).

In an interview in 1970, he said that he adopted this name out of fear of his father, who never approved of his acting career because of the general poor image of cinema back then.

Post-1976, he went on a brief hiatus from film performances and returned with the revolutionary drama Kranti (1981), which was the highest-grossing Indian film of the year.

He continued to play leading roles in films such as Vidhaata (1982), Shakti (1982), Karma (1986), and Saudagar (1991).

For his contributions to film, the Government of India awarded him with the Padma Bhushan in 1991 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2015, the country's third and second-highest civilian awards respectively.

He was also awarded India's highest accolade in the field of cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994.

His last on-screen appearance was in the commercially unsuccessful Qila (1998), which saw him in a dual role.

In 1998, the Government of Pakistan conferred Kumar with Nishan-e-Imtiaz, their highest civilian decoration, making him the only Indian to have received the honour.

Kumar later served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament, from 2000 to 2006.

Kumar's personal life was the subject of much media attention, however, he himself had largely avoided media limelight and endorsements.

The house that Kumar grew up in, located in Peshawar, was declared a national heritage monument in 2014 by the Pakistani government.