6,030 pages read across the site in the last 24 hours · 5 pages a minute on average · 25 countries in the last 30 days

Pran

1920–2013

Pran Krishan Sikand was a photographer's apprentice who was spotted in a paan shop in Lahore, and for twenty years afterwards he was the villain of Hindi cinema so completely that parents stopped naming their sons Pran.

Then, at fifty, he changed: Sher Khan in Zanjeer is a supporting part played with such warmth that it rebuilt his career as a character actor. He worked in more than three hundred films across six decades and was given the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2013, months before he died.