Ashok Kumar’s real name is Kumud Kumar Ganguly. After gaining fame in the industry, people started calling him by the name of Dada Muni. Later this name became his signature name. He has done more than 300 films in his acting career.
Born in Bhagalpur, Bihar, Ashok Kumar’s father Kunjlal Ganguly was a lawyer in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh. Like his father, Ashok Kumar also wanted to become a lawyer, but the account of luck was saying something else. However, becoming an actor in that era was not as easy as it is today. In fact, people used to look at the film industry with a dirty eye and those who work in the film do not get that respect, then they get it today. Ashok Kumar himself had said, in those days call girls used to be heroines and brokers used to be heroes.
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You can guess this from the fact that when it came to know in Ashok Kumar’s house that he had become an actor, there was uproar in his house. Even their marriage broke up. Not only this, his father immediately went to Nagpur to meet his college friend Ravi Shankar Shukla who was the Chief Minister at that time and asked him to give some job to the son. Shukla offered him two job offer letters, but it didn’t work out as the industry was about to get a famous star.
The story of his becoming a hero is no less interesting. Ashok Kumar initially worked as a sound engineer in Bombay Talkies and was responsible for overseeing other departments of production. It happened that actress Devika Rani’s hero Najimal Hussain ran away from the set, due to which Himanshu Roy of Bombay Talkies got very upset. At the same time, Himanshu caught sight of Ashok and he said that now you are the hero of Devika. What was it then, this was the time when the track of Ashok turned in this direction and Devika Rani, the pair of Ashok Kumar was also a big hit.
Ashok Kumar was the first Bollywood actor who got a chance to become a hero. In his first film ‘Jeevan Naiya’, he also sang a song along with acting. It was just then that Ashok Kumar became the first superstar of the country. Alam was that when he came out of the house, a huge crowd used to stand to see him. The women of big families were smitten on him.
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For your information, let us tell you that Ashok Kumar played the role of a criminal in Gyan Mukherjee’s film ‘Kismat’ in 1943. It was the first Hindi film to earn more than Rs 1 crore. The film ran in theaters for a year. Which got a lot of headlines.
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