In today’s weekend blog, I am continuing with Bollywood.
You know Amitabh Bachchan ruled Bollywood from the mid-1970s till the beginning of the 1990s. After that, he took a break from films and started his second innings in the late 1990s, but it was only after the early 2000s that he again peaked, this time as a character artist rather than as a leading man. It is a known fact that he has earned much more in his second innings than in his first innings, and he is still continuing even at the age of 83. He is known as a legend and star of the millennium, but there are some incidents which happened during the late phase of his first innings, which show the dark side of his character, which many of us are not aware.
Here are some of the incidents:
1 Actor Mehmood gave Amitabh Bachchan a place to live, food and support when he was struggling in his earlier days. He even produced a film called “Bombay to Goa” to help launch him as a commercial star, and this movie was Amitabh’s first hit as a leading man. But when Mehmood was ill and in the hospital, Amitabh never visited. He also didn’t show up at Mehmood’s last rites.
2 Producer and Director Prakash Mehra gave Amitabh his biggest break with the film Zanjeer, which gave him the image of ‘Angry Young Man’, and later gave him big hits like Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Namak Halal, Sharabi, Khoon Pasina, and many others. But their last film, ‘Jadugar’, flopped badly, and Prakash Mehra suffered huge financial losses and never recovered. He passed away alone, and Amitabh was nowhere around.
3 Producer and Director Manmohan Desai was favourite of Amitabh. Their combination gave many super hit films like ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’, ‘Suhaag’, ‘Parvarish’, ‘Mard’, ‘Coolie’ and many more. But later films like ‘Toofan’ and ‘Ganga Jamuna Saraswati’ flopped. Desai lost a lot of money and reportedly jumped from his building to end his life. During the late phase of Desai, Amitabh was not seen supporting him.
4 The Gandhi family supported Amitabh from the start. It is known in the Bollywood circle that Indira Gandhi reportedly made calls to help get roles from top producers and directors. Rajiv Gandhi made him a Member of Parliament. But later, when Amitabh’s name was linked with Rajiv Gandhi in the Bofors scandal, he ditched Rajiv Gandhi and left politics.
5 After leaving Congress, Amitabh got close to Amar Singh and turned to him for help during his lean period and the latter part of the 1990s, when he was in big debt, because his company ABCL suffered heavy losses. Amar Singh arranged huge unsecured loans from Sahara and Peerless. But when Amar Singh died, Amitabh was nowhere to be found.
6 Kader Khan wrote great dialogues for Amitabh in many films and taught him how to deliver them powerfully on screen. But when Amitabh reached super stardom, he wanted Kader Khan to call him ‘Sir’. When Kader refused, Amitabh stopped using him as a dialogue writer. When Kader passed away, Amitabh said nothing-no word of sympathy or tribute.
7 Kishore Kumar gave Amitabh numerous hit songs that boosted his career, but when Kishore requested Amitabh to do a guest appearance in his film ‘Mamta Ki Chhaon Mein’, Amitabh did not oblige. Rajesh Khanna, on the other hand, willingly did the guest role for free.
8 Salim Khan (along with Javed Akhtar) created the ‘Angry Young Man’ image that turned struggling Amitabh into a superstar in the 1970s. But when Salim and Javed separated, Amitabh never gave any support to Salim, but he got very close to Javed. Recently, when Salim Khan was put on a ventilator, there was no immediate reaction from Amitabh.
So friends, this is Bollywood, where everyone is opportunist, including legendary superstars.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
27th February 2026