Ashok Kumar

1911–2001

Thirty-five films here, and the span is the thing. He had been a leading man since Achhut Kannya in 1936; the last film of his in this catalogue, Faisla, was passed by the censors in 1988. Fifty-two years, and he is playing Rehman, the oldest of three escaped convicts, in a picture that had itself been waiting on a shelf for most of a decade.

He was also the eldest of three brothers who all went into the business, and one film here puts all three of them in the same credits. In Chori Mera Kaam, Kishore Kumar sings for Shashi Kapoor throughout - except on Main Kachche Angoor Ki Bel, where Kishore sings for Ashok instead, and Kishore's son Amit Kumar takes over Shashi Kapoor. Anoop Kumar, the middle brother, plays a police constable. One number with a brother singing for a brother and a nephew singing for the lead.

The elder-statesman roles are everywhere in the later part of the catalogue - Rai Sahib in Mahaan, Justice Verma in Judaai, Professor Peter Fernandes in Watan Ke Rakhwale, Dr Verma in Bhanwar, Shankar in Chori Mera Kaam. By the eighties a producer who wanted an audience to believe a man immediately simply cast Ashok Kumar, and the audience did.

Twenty-seven years before any of that, he is the voice on Ek Chatur Naar - the song, in its original form, is his, from Jhoola in 1941, and R. D. Burman rebuilt it for Padosan as a singing duel in 1968.

Dates and credits from Wikidata.