Happy Birthday Amrish Puri, Amrish Puri Birth Anniversary: Today i.e. June 23 is the birthday of Amrish Puri, a famous Bollywood actor. Had he been alive, he would be celebrating his 90th birthday today. Amrish Puri worked in more than one film during his career and left his mark. Like the villain he played in Hindi cinema, no one else could even get around it. When ‘Mr India’ was released in the year 1987, it became the most talked about film of that era after ‘Sholay’. Amrish Puri was also a big reason behind the discussion of the film, who played the role of ‘Mogambo’.
Amrish Puri played a strong role of a villain in ‘Mr India’, his signature line “Mogambo khush hua” became so famous that people still speak this line of his. Although very few people know that Amrish Puri was not the first choice for the role of Mogambo in ‘Mr India’. He himself had disclosed this. In his biography “Act of Life”, Amrish Puri has written that almost 60 percent of the shooting of the film was completed when director Shekhar Kapur offered him the role.
Now I remembered… Amrish Puri further writes in his biography, ‘I was a little apprehensive, because the shooting of more than half the film was completed. I thought ‘he (the director of the film) now remembered me’. Let us tell you that before Amrish Puri, the role of Mogambo was offered to actor Anupam Kher. In an interview, he told that the role of Mogambo in ‘Mr India’ was first offered to me, but within a month or two, the filmmakers replaced me.
Puri got all kinds of exemptions: Amrish Puri has written in his biography that during the shooting of the film, the director gave me complete freedom to design my character, Mogambo’s character was like Hitler. The idea for Mogambo’s character came from the Hollywood film Starring Clark Gable. Amrish Puri writes that the shooting time of the film was so packed that I did not even see the light for 15-20 days.
The grand set for the shooting of the film was at RK Studios. Let us tell you that it has been almost 36 years since ‘Mr India’ was released. Anil Kapoor and Sridevi were in important roles in the film but even today people have not forgotten Amrish Puri’s role of Mogambo.