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Born Jul 29 , 1959
If any one single hero has made the largest impact on the otherwise lackluster 1999, it was Sanjay Dutt. After lying in the cold for over half a decade since Saajan, Sanju baba has sure made a comeback, and how! He came back with a bang thanks to Vaastav, Haseena Maan Jayegi and Daag The Fire.
Sanjay Dutt is a self-confessed car maniac. While Sanju zips around the city these days in his upmarket Land Cruiser, on the bylanes of Pali Hill he zooms around on his Harley Davidson.
Life was a bed of roses with many thorns for Sanju Baba who was with a silver spoon in Dutt family to his star parents Sunil Dutt and Nargis.
Sanjay Dutt started his career with Rocky produced by his father and then became Dream Boy of many girls. At initial stage of his career there were many ups and downs, but Mahesh Bhatt's Naam uplifted his career and he again started with the new image. Subhash Ghai's Vidhata and Khalnayak showed his acting talent, in one where he was child and in other a child who takes a wrong way to earn money. Lawrence D'souza's Saajan was a big hit where he protrayed a lame poet. There was a false belief that he could not dance, but he proved himself in Thaneedar where he danced to the tunes of Taama Taama with co- star Madhuri Dixit. The song was a big hit.
Sanjay Dutt's life was always in media with one or the other controversies surrounding him. There were his drug addiction, his actress wife Late Richa Sharma suffering from Tumor, his involvment with anti - social parties and many more. But tough times never lasted for him. He is back in the industry to give many hits. His latest release was Afzal Khan's Mahaanta which didn't do well at the box office. His new releases is Ram Gopal Verma's Daud.
Call him the comeback kid. After four years of lingering in cinematic wilderness, our hero has made a grand comeback. And how! Six releases, three hits, and two commission-earners. Sanjay Dutt is the man of the hour in Bollywood. After being released on bail (from a year-and-a-half-long imprisonment on TADA charges) in 1995, Sanju baba had a few insignificant releases over the next three years - Mahaanta (with Madhuri Dixit) and Daud (with Urmila) being the only ones worth even a second's remembrance. Cruel times for a guy who was at his commercial peak when snatched away from his fans by the long arms of the law. Sanjay's personal life too was going through hell, with wife Richa dying a slow, painful death. And then came 1999. And the turn-around in the lovable guy's fortunes. Whether it was the fact that you can't keep a good guy down for long, or it was that second wife Rhea's prayers were finally answered, someone up there decided that the man had suffered enough. The courts decided to lift the ban on Sanju's going abroad, just in time to allow him to celebrate his first wedding anniversary in Europe. Then came the happy news that Trishala's grandparents had finally decided to allow her to meet her father. So much for his personal happiness. On the professional front too, 1999 proved the most satisfactory year of Sanjay Dutt's career. His first release of the year was the Mahima Chaudhary-Chandrachur Singh co-starrer Daag-the Fire. In spite of a slightly weird plot, Raj Kanwar's movie was a big hit, mainly because of Sanju's angst-ridden 'sensational appearance'. Then came Kartoos and Safari. While the long-delayed Safari (co-starring Juhi Chawla) deservedly delivered a turkey at the B-O, Mahesh Bhatt's Kartoos (co-starring Jackie Shroff and Manisha Koirala) drew a fantastic initial before settling down as a commission-earner. David Dhawan's Haseena Maan Jayegi had Sanju matching skills with comedy kings Govinda and Kader Khan. While Govinda did end up tops, at least Sanju had the satisfaction of not looking like a moron (which most co-stars of Chi Chi, including the Big B, end up looking)! The fantastic combo of the funnyman and the macho clown had the audience rolling in the aisles, and the moolah raked in. In October was released the dark underworld saga Vaastav, on the same day as Ram Gopal Verma's much-hyped Mast. While Mast sunk without a trace, Mahesh Manjrekar's gritty tale of crime and punishment left the audience mesmerized. The movie went on to become the biggest surprise hit of the year, and it was Sanjay Dutt's superlative performance in the lead role that packed the power punch. Sanju's histrionics left everyone breathless, including the great Dilip Kumar, who declared that no other actor, not even he himself in his prime, could have done the role better. At the fag end of the year came Khoobsurat (with Urmila), and though it is not a hit by the wildest standards, it is still running modestly at most centres. Good news for the man who stands tallest among the contemporary stars of Bollywood.
Sanjay Dutt, the star son of star parents Nargis and Sunil Dutt, was the star of the family right from the beginning. He had a dream of making it as big as his parents and his father helped him in realising his dreams. His first film 'Rocky' happened and the star was twinkling all the more brightly. 'Rocky' was not that hit a film but established Sanjay Dutt as the new star son. What followed was sheer nightmare where none of his films did well and he took to drugs. No amount of counseling was good enough till he was taken to USA. Once back from there, he became a totally new person and surprised everyone in Mahesh Bhatt's 'Naam'. This film proved to be the ultimate film for him and from here on Sanjay Dutt progressed with leaps and bounds. 'Saajan', 'Sadak' and 'Khalnayak' followed suit and there was appreciation all around. But he could not take everything in his stride that well. The TADA episode spoiled his budding career. After this, Sanjay Dutt did made a comeback but without much success. None of his movies like 'Mahanta' and 'Kartoos' have done well so far. His forthcoming film David Dhawan's 'Haseena Maan Jayegi' with Govinda should do him some good.
He grew up as the archetypal rich brat, indulged and complexed. Sanjay became a star with his debut film 'Rocky', although the film didn't do well at the box-office. His mother Nargis died of cancer just before the release of his first film.Soon, Sanjay's relationship with girlfriend Tina Munim ended and with the failure of his several other films he was a heart- broken man. His illustrious father Sunil Dutt tried to draw his career chart but Sanjay gave in to the call of the wild. "The drug phase was awful," Sanjay reminicises. "I think, I did it because of the environment. Everybody was doing it, so I too joined in. I wanted to show off but once I got into it, nothing would register and I was gone. I used to take cocaine and heroin, uppers and downers." His father and brother-in-law Bunty tried to help him save himself but he wasn't bothered. But it was only when he saw his image in the mirror he knew this had to stop. "I was dying. And the withdrawal symptoms, the cold turkey . It was the worst exper ience of my life." Drugs almost took him to the point of no return but finally sanity returned after a stint at a rehabilitation centre in the United States. And on his return he transposed onto the screen all his inner feelings with Mahesh Bhatt's film 'Naam', where he played the role of the wayward but well meaning son. Sanjay married Richa Sharma and his life had reached an even keel when once again fate struck him. Richa had cancer. He fought back, plunging himself into work and wiith successful films like 'Saajan', where he played a lame poet, as a taxi driver fighting an underworld don in 'Sadak' and in 'Khalnayak', where he portrayed the character of a miscreant who is reformed in the end, Dutt jr was all set to storm the industry when the Bombay bomb blast controversy whisked him to a cell. Today, out on bail Sanjay is slowly regaining his looks but that glint in the eye is still imprisoned behind a cloud of doubt.
To make your mark in a profession where one parent has excelled in proves to be a great load of expectations for any young man. For Sanjay Dutt, the level of expectations was doubly loaded. As the only son of Sunil Dutt, the dashing heartbreaking actor of Hindi films of the 60s and the 70s, and Nargis Dutt, one of the finest actresses to be seen on the Hindi film screen, Sanjay was always burdened with the level of expectations not many young men have been exposed to, in any profession, and at any time of their professional careers.
Sanjay Dutt's debut in films was, to say the least, was one of the most anticipated one in Hindi film history. As a strapping young 19-year-old, Sanjay was pitch forked into limelight, when his debut film, "Rocky" (1981), was announced. This slightly spoilt, heady brat, was maybe, in hindsight, was not prepared for the sudden adulation that followed. Added to this complex situation was the abrupt illness of his mother, on who he loved and doted on, and was the emotional bridge between the uneasy teenage son-concerned father relationship, shared by Sanjay and his father. "Rocky", directed by his father, was a relative hit at the box-office, but both father and son were really not able to savour its success. Mrs. Nargis Dutt passed away, after fighting a grim battle with cancer.
The emotional upheaval tossed the Dutt household into an emotional frenzy. Sanjay Dutt was at the first crossroad of his life. His arrival at the Hindi film scene had been heralded as the coming of a new star whilst at the same time, he had lost the most important person in his life. With his father overcome with his own grief, Sanjay, as he is wont to say, went astray in trying to deal with this immense personal loss.
A topsy-turvy fast life of partying, drugs, booze etc. followed as a result of which his promising career as an actor went for a toss. Despite such super-hit films like "Vidhaata" (1982, dir. Subhash Ghai), Sanjay was on a roller coaster ride into self-destructing.
As a heavily doped-out Sanjay lost the bearings of his career, his father and family stepped in to try and provide the emotional anchor that he badly needed. After a complete rehabilitation programme, Sanjay Dutt returned to his acting vocation with a vengeance with "Naam" (1986, Dir. Mahesh Bhatt). His career graph just took off and he quickly re-established himself as the great brown hope of the Hindi film industry.
The double whammy of "Saajan" (1991, dir. Lawrence D'Souza) and "Sadak (1991, dir. Mahesh Bhatt) catapulted him in the league of superstars. These two films also enabled him to change his image from the next angry young man (an action hero terminology which has germinated from the Amitabh Bachchan phenomena) to a versatile star-actor. His portrayal of the lame, sacrificing poet in "Saajan", especially, was a revelation to the industry pundits who were not inclined to admit to, in those days, of Sanjay's ability to act. On the personal front too, things were falling in place with his romance, and eventual marriage, to the promising actress, Richa Sharma, and the birth of his daughter, Trishala.
However, tragedy struck again. Richa died young with cancer striking again. To overcome this tragedy, Sanjay, a far more matured person now, attacked his work with a vendetta, acting with his usual aplomb and gusto, in successful films like "Khalnayak" (1994, dir. Subhash Ghai). But unwarranted trouble was just waiting to strike again.
The Mumbai bomb blasts are one of the worst urban terrorist acts of the modern world history. The whole film industry, was in for a rude shock, whilst dealing with this calamity, when they opened their morning newspapers to discover that Sanjay Dutt had been implicated as one of the participants in this inhumane wanton act. A lot has been written, and analysed, about Sanjay's role (or the lack of) in the blasts, but the final word would be to indicate that truth finally prevailed and he was absolved of the allegation.
The time Sanjay spent in jail, in his own often used words, were the worst of his life. Without the emotional anchor of his family, and his girlfriend, Rhea Pillai (now his wife), it is doubtful whether, as he is wont to indicate, he would have survived this recent ordeal in his life. There were also the usual sceptics within the film industry, upon his release from jail, who were writing off Sanjay's acting career by the minute. Sanjay Dutt has overcome this latest personal turmoil, to emerge triumphant professionally again. Despite the lacklustre box-office performances of some of his post-jail releases (most notable, "Daud" (1997, dir. Ram Gopal Varma)), all of them have taken a huge opening at the box-office. "Daag - The Fire" (1999, dir. Raj Kanwar) has been one of the bona fide hits of this year, and with such widely anticipated films like "Vaastav" (1999, dir. Mahesh Manjrekar) and "Khoobsurat" due for release, Sanjay Dutt has made another comeback as a star-actor.
And on his return he transposed onto the screen all his inner feelings with Mahesh Bhatt's film Naam, where he played the role of the wayward but well meaning son. Sanjay married heroine Richa Sharma, a Dev Anand discovery and his life had reached an even keel when once again fate struck him. Richa had cancer. He fought back, plunging himself into work and wiith successful films like Saajan, where he played a lame poet, as a taxi driver fighting an underworld don in Sadak and in Khalnayak, where he portrayed the character of a miscreant who is reformed in the end, Dutt jr was all set to storm the industry when the Bombay bomb blast controversy whisked him to a cell.
Sanjay Dutt was on top ('Saajan', 'Khalnayak') when he was arrested for being in possession of AK56 gun during riots. He lost all popularity during the months he spent in jail. He has not had a single hit after he was released on bail, untill now he has struck gold with Daag - The Fire which is a hit.
Then, Sanju tried his hands on comedy and was quite successful. Films like Haseena Maan Jaayegi, Chal Mere Bhai, and recently the super-hit Jodi No.1 proved that he is an all rounder.
The success of Jodi No.1 and Haseena Maan Jaayegi made Govinda-Sanju and David team a super hit. Sanjay Dutt who danced very little in the past is now try new moves with Govinda and has been appreciated in whatever he does now. Vaastav bagged him the very well-deserved Best Actor Awards. After films like Vaastav, Kurushetra, and Pitaah, the true intensity of this versatile actor came on screen.
After lying in the cold for over half a decade since Saajan, Sanju baba has sure made a comeback, and how! He banged onto limelight with Vaastav, Haseena Maan Jayegi and Daag The Fire, while lesser successes such as Kartoos and Khoobsurat also helped the guy in his rise from oblivion. And all that, in a year when most of the big brand names bit the dust. So, what did Sanjay gain? Simply this, that the lovable hunk has jacked up his fee to an astounding 1.5 crore per film. And still, he is being flooded with films - producers are lining up in front of his bungalow, to sign up Sanju, never mind the money he wants. Vaastav mein, he's lost none of the fire, alright.
In a period of 20 years in Bollywood, he acted in about 60 films which uplifted Sanjay Dutt and established him in the Film Industry.
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