Prem Chopra enters a young 90!

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He has always had twin fetishes—for films and for fitness. Prem Chopra, who enters his 90^th year today (September 23), chuckles and says, “I am just 40!” when I ask him which milestone he has reached. I tell him, “No, Prem-ji! Actually, you are just 30!” and he laughs heartily and says, “Thank you! You have corrected my mistake!”

Yet to get any major National recognition, for me, Prem Chopra will always be a fabulously versatile actor, and above all a dear friend and an immaculate gentleman. I will never forget how he agreed instantly to a video interview about six years back as the first guest on a show on a television channel. Even more important, when I met him for the first time, he was suffering from conjunctivitis and wearing dark glasses. And he had quipped that a virus was playing villain to a (on-screen) evil man!

And when we realize that Prem began his innings way back in 1960, with the Punjabi film Chaudhary Karnail Singh as a hero, we come to know of the long innings he has played as leading man, villain, character actor and, occasionally, comedian. And yes, there has been international movies—he has done Thread, My Husband’s Wife. Honour Killings, Heartland and Line Of Descent, work on TV too (Andaz, the serial that marked Rajendra Kumar’s as well as his debut on television, and Himesh Reshammiya’s first, and more serials). He has even featured in the web series, Showtime, this year. Animal, in which he did a small role, was a blockbuster last year as well.

Today, when he is almost always a “good” man in films, Chopra is glad about having been “bad” for most of his life! “My films as hero flopped, and those as villains clicked. Though actors, by definition, must be able to do everything, which is why I did comic roles, like in Prem Tapasya. I also played a comic villain, soft emotional roles, breezy characters and everything else. I was hero in a few films, and I like to grumble that because I was a successful villain and villains never sang songs that they never gave me songs!” he says with a broad smile.

Rajendra Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Dharmendra, Shashi Kapoor, Jeetendra, Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan were among the actors who worked frequently with him as “villain” and the stardom these men saw ensured Chopra’s gravy train for decades.

He is also an artiste whose filmography of directors includes Raj Kapoor, B.R. Chopra, Manoj Kumar, Raj Khosla, Manmohan Desai, Yash Chopra, Vijay Anand and Rakesh Roshan, the cream of heroes and heroines and even the best of fellow-villains from Pran to Danny Denzongpa, Amjad Khan, Ranjeet, Shakti Kapoor, Kader Khan, Gulshan Grover and Amrish Puri.

In the last few years, Prem has been on an award-collection spree: he has won four prestigious Lifetime Achievement awards—from the Goa, NOIDA and Jaipur International Film Festivals and Star-Screen (apart from Filmfare years ago). The actor’s study is literally crowded with awards, honors, felicitations and trophies won over the years. Chopra has been even conferred the Mother Teresa award for his social work.

You can’t help being in prem (love) with a man who has been, for 65 years, in relentlessly ardent prem with his work!

11 Prem Chopra rare facts at a glance

1. His father, Ranbirlal Chopra, wanted Prem to become a doctor or an IAS officer. Having done dramatics in college, He completed his Bachelor’s in Art and wanted to act. His father had no objection, provided he first got a secure job.
2. His first salary in Mumbai from The Times of India (his job involved a fun travel beat!) was a hefty Rs. 2500—in the late 1950s!
3. Prem Chopra made his debut in Hindi films with the Bharat Bhushan-starrer Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh in 1960, which was a flop.
4. In 2004, he was awarded the Legend of Indian CinemaAward at Atlantic City in USA.
5. He himself recorded a song, Kab se yeh dil hai pyaasa with Kavita Krishnamurthi Subramaniam, for Mera Muqaddar (1988). Though the music was by Kamalkant, Prem had actually given him the tune.
6. This was because he lamented that as a villain, he was (almost never) given songs to sing in films, with stray exceptions. Prem would always insist on songs in his brother Kailash Chopra’s movies (Lagan, Nafrat, Shakka).
7. Both his breakthrough films, Woh Kaun Thi? (1964) and Shaheed (1965) involved Manoj Kumar, who unofficially scripted the first, and officially scripted and unofficially directed the latter!
8. In a recent interview, Prem expressed that the nuanced writing of modern villain characters leads audiences to sympathize with them, especially if played by lead actors, a departure from the past when villains were typically one-dimensional.
9. Prem Chopra and Uma, Krishna Raj Kapoor’s sister, have three daughters: Rakita, Punita and Prerana. They are respectively married to Rahul Nanda (the publicity whiz and son to writer legend Gulshan Nanda) and actors Vikas Bhalla and Sharman Joshi.
10. With Jeetendra, Rakesh Roshan and the late Rishi Kapoor and Sujit Kumar, Prem Chopra formed a tight clique of friends.
11. Prem Chopra represented India as Grand Marshall in Chicago on August 15, 1993 during the Independence Day Parade. There he was honored by the Chicago Mayor as Honorary Citizen of Chicago and felicitated by the Federation of Indian Association with an award for outstanding contribution to humanitarian causes and enriching the Indian community in India and abroad.