Dharmendra, a person widely loved for his simplicity, humbleness and earthy nature, is one of the most respected veterans in the Indian Film Industry today. Coming from the creative soil of Punjab, Garam Dharam (as he was fondly called) was a big fan of Hindi Films even before joining the Industry and loved watching them a lot in his early years. Many of his fans might know that in his youth, Dharmendra was a die-hard fan of actress Suraiya and Dilip Kumar. Till date he still considers Dilip Kumar as the Great God of Acting in India and he is very right in believing that too.
Such was his craze for “Suraiya” that he walked miles to watch her movie “Dillagi” released in 1949 and went over to see it more than 30 times. The black & white classic based on a legendary love story was directed by A. R. Kardar with Shyam in the lead and music by Naushad.
Destiny remembered Dharmendra’s love for the movie and after almost three decades Basu Chatterjee offered him a project with the same title along with Hema Malini. This “Dillagi” got released in 1978 wherein Dharmendra & Hema Malini both played the roles of two school teachers. Their respective parts were quite different from their famous on screen image, hence the movie could not make a strong impact and is still remembered as an interesting path breaking attempt by its director, Basu Chatterjee.
Then again after two decades, Dharmendra, himself produced a movie, with the same title “Dillagi” in 1999, directed by his son Sunny Deol, carrying forward the He-man image of his father, impressively. The movie also featured the kid brother, Bobby Deol along with Urmila Matondkar and fared just fine at the box office.
So, Dharmendra’s long association with the title “Dillagi” continued till 50 years of his celebrating life as an actor.
Interestingly according to IMDB.com, there are as many as 6 movies made with the title “Dillagi” in Bollywood since 1942.
