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Amjad Khan (actor)

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Amjad Khan
Amjad Khan in 1982
Born
Amjad Zakaria Khan

(1940-11-12)12 November 1940
Bombay, Bombay Province, British India
(present-day Mumbai, Maharashtra, India)
Died27 July 1992(1992-07-27) (aged 51)
Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Alma materSt. Andrew's High School
R. D. National College
Occupations
Years active1951–1992
Known forSholay (1975)
Notable workGabbar Singh
SpouseShaila Khan
Children3 (including Shadaab Khan)
FatherJayant
RelativesImtiaz Khan (brother)
Akhtar ul Iman (father-in-law)
Zafar Karachiwala (son-in-law)

Amjad Khan (12 November 1940 – 27 July 1992) was a renowned Indian actor and film director.[1] He worked in over 132 films in a career spanning nearly twenty years. He was the son of the actor Jayant. He gained popularity for villainous roles in mostly Hindi films, the most famous among his enacted roles being Gabbar Singh in the 1975 film Sholay[2] and of Dilawar in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978).

Early life and education

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Amjad Khan was born in Bombay, Bombay State, British India on 12 November 1940 into a family of Khalil Pashtuns descent to actor Jayant, who was originally from Peshawar, North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan).[3][4][5][6][7][8] His younger brother Imtiaz Khan was also an actor.

Amjad Khan was educated at St. Andrew's High School in Bandra. He then attended R. D. National College where he held the position of general secretary. During his college and school days, he worked as a theater artist and performed in his college with his brother. Later, he earned his master's in philosophy (first class) from Bombay University and used to win prizes both as actor and as director at the inter-collegiate theatre festivals.[9] Apart from English and Urdu, Amjad Khan was also fluent in Persian, having done another master's in Persian literature, and he would help his wife for her exams in this subject.[10]

Career

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Main article: Amjad Khan filmography and awards

Early career (1951-1975)

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Before Amjad Khan came to films, he was a theatre actor. His first role was as a child actor at the age of 11 in the film Nazneen in 1951. His next role was at the age of 17 in the film Ab Dilli Dur Nahin (1957). He assisted K. Asif in the film Love And God in the late 1960s and had a brief appearance in the film. The film was left incomplete after Asif's death in 1971, and it was finally released in 1986. In 1973, he appeared in Hindustan Ki Kasam in a small role.

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In 1975, he was offered the role of dacoit Gabbar Singh for the film Sholay by Salim Khan, who was one of its writers. In preparation for the role, Amjad read Abhishapth Chambal, a book on Chambal dacoits written by Taroon Kumar Bhaduri (actress Jaya Bhaduri's father) Sholay went on to become a blockbuster.[3]

After the success of Sholay, Khan continued to play negative roles in many subsequent Hindi films in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s – superseding, in terms of popularity and demand, the earlier Indian actor, Ajit. He often acted as villain opposite Amitabh Bachchan as the hero. His role in Inkaar was also presented in terrifying manner. He made his presence felt in Des Pardes, Nastik, Satte Pe Satta, Chambal Ki Kasam, Ganga Ki Saugandh, Hum Kisise Kum Nahin and Naseeb.[11]

Khan was also acclaimed for playing many unconventional roles. In the critically acclaimed film Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) (based on the novel of the same title), by Munshi Premchand and directed by Satyajit Ray, Khan played the helpless and deluded monarch Wajid Ali Shah, whose kingdom, Avadh, is being targeted by British colonialists from the British East India Company. It is the only movie in which he dubbed a song. In 1979, he portrayed Emperor Akbar in the film Meera. He played many positive roles such as in Yaarana (1981) and Laawaris (1981) as Amitabh's friend and father respectively, Rocky (1981) and Commander (1981). In the art film Utsav (1984), he portrayed Vatsayana, the author of the Kama Sutra. In 1988, he appeared in the Merchant Ivory English language film The Perfect Murder as an underworld don. He excelled at playing comical characters in films such as Qurbani (1980), Love Story and Chameli Ki Shaadi (1986). In 1991, he reprised his role as Gabbar Singh in Ramgarh Ke Sholay, a parody of the legendary film which included look-alikes of Dev Anand and Amitabh Bachchan.

Directorial work

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He ventured into directing for a brief period in the 1980s, directing and starring in Chor Police (1983) and Ameer Aadmi Gareeb Aadmi (1985), both of the films did not do well at the box office.[3]

Other work

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Amjad was the president of the Actors Guild Association.[citation needed]

Personal life and death

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Relationships and family

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In 1972, he married Shaila Khan, the daughter of Urdu poet and screenwriter Akhtar ul Iman,[12] and in the following year, she gave birth to their first child, Shadaab Khan, who would later join the entertainment industry. He also had a daughter, Ahlam Khan, an actress and screenwriter,[13] and another son, Seemab Khan, who is a club cricketer.[14] Ahlam married popular theatre actor Zafar Karachiwala in 2011.[7][15][16]

Literature and philosophy

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Amjad Khan was fond of literature and philosophy, having studied the subject, often quoting English poets such as Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley as well ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle.[17]

Accident

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On 15 October 1976,[18][19] Amjad Khan met with a serious accident on the Mumbai-Goa highway which left him with broken ribs and a punctured lung. He was going to participate in the shooting of the film The Great Gambler, starring Amitabh Bachchan.[20]

Last years

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Amjad Khan was passionate about badminton and bull-work but, following another accident, he was diagnosed with Bell's palsy in 1984. This led to a course of steroid treatment which, combined with his poor eating habits, caused excessive weight gain that negatively affected both his health and his film career.[17]

On 27 July 1992, he died of a heart attack. He was 51.[18][7] His death was attributed to a myocardial infarction.[17]

References

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  1. ^ "Remember the old baddies?". MSN India. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  2. ^ "Gabbar Singh". Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Archived from the original on 12 October 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  3. ^ a b c "Obituary: Amjad Khan". The Independent newspaper. 26 August 1992. Archived from the original on 12 May 2015. Retrieved 11 October 2023. The son of Zakaria Khan, a Pathan from the North-West Frontier Province and popular Bollywood character actor of the Fifties and Sixties (screen name Jayant), Amjad Khan was born in Bombay in 1940.
  4. ^ "actor Jayant profile (Amjad Khan's father)". Cinemaazi.com website. Archived from the original on 3 December 2020.
  5. ^ "The Khans of Bombay's Hindi film industry – Gateway House". Archived from the original on 22 April 2020. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  6. ^ "When Amjad Khan had 'broken' the promise made to Allah, he used to say that I got his punishment- Newslead India". 12 November 2021. Archived from the original on 28 December 2021. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
  7. ^ a b c "When Amjad Khan had 'broken' the promise made to Allah, he used to say that I got his punishment". DailyIndia.net website. 12 November 2021. Archived from the original on 28 December 2021. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  8. ^ "Jayant profile (Amjad Khan's father)". Swapnil Sansar website. 2 June 2020. Archived from the original on 28 December 2021. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
  9. ^ John, Ali Peter (31 July 2018). "Remembering Amjad Khan: The Man, the Artist, The Philosopher". Bollywood Hungama. Archived from the original on 11 April 2025. Amjad was a strange combination of a brilliant student who did his M.A in a difficult subject like Philosophy and got a first class from the Bombay University and who won all the major prizes as an actor and director in inter-collegiate theatre festivals.
  10. ^ Farook, Farhana (8 April 2018). "Late Amjad Khan's wife talks about his death & more". Filmfare. [Amjad Khan's wife] "Amjad had done his Masters in Persian, which was my second language too. So he'd teach me Persian," says she.
  11. ^ "Amjad Khan filmography". Complete Index To World Film (CITWF) website. Archived from the original on 20 April 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  12. ^ "'Writing is in my blood'". The Deccan Chronicle. 12 February 2014. My maternal grandfather, Akhtar ul Iman, was a very famous writer who penned films like Ittefaq and. Waqt.
  13. ^ "Meet Ahlam Khan, the beautiful daughter of 'Gabbar' Amjad Khan". DNA India.
  14. ^ Rizvi, Taus (11 August 2019). "Weight of selection: Amjad Khan's son Seemab Khan to Rahkeem Cornwall". DNA India.
  15. ^ "Zafar Karachiwala, Ahlam Khan got married". The Times of India. 23 September 2011. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013.
  16. ^ "Born to act: Ahlam Khan Karachiwala". Archived from the original on 28 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
  17. ^ a b c Farook, Farhana (27 July 2021). "Sports-freak & filmy legend Amjad 'Gabbar' Khan's weight gain triggered his downfall". Yahoo News.
  18. ^ a b "Tragic Nostalgia". The Times of India. 4 June 2012. Archived from the original on 14 September 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  19. ^ ""I was confident my marriage would never break"". Filmfare. 27 July 2015. Archived from the original on 26 March 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  20. ^ "Amitabh and the Goa Connect". The Navhind Times. 19 November 2014. Archived from the original on 9 October 2016. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
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