WHEN JEETENDRA INSTALLED CROMPTON CEILING FAN
Evergreen Jeetendra, popularly known as Jumping Jack in Bollywood, is away from acting today but he is still as busy as ever and remains involved in business with his daughter Ekta and wife Shobha.
Born on 7 April 1942 in Amritsar, Ravi Kapoor moved to Mumbai with his family. Jeetendra started his career in the Hindi film industry with Bollywood’s Shirodha V. Started with Shantaram. The beginning was not so easy that settled down and got the role.
After finishing his early education, he started helping his father’s business. He tells that the financial condition of the house was not very good and we used to live in a chawl at Girgao Chowpatty. Jeetendra recalls his time and says that “I still remember when we first installed Crompton’s ceiling fan in our house, the people came to see the full trick”
Superstar Rajesh Khanna and Jeetendra studied in the same college, were also good friends, but Rajesh Khanna used to participate in drama or cultural programs in college from the very beginning. Father’s work was in artificial jewelry, which he used to supply in films. Coming V. Shantaram was also met but never had the courage to talk.
One day, with courage, Jeetendra gave V. Said to Shantaram that I want to work in films if you can help. V. Shantaram did not give any special response in the beginning and told Jeetendra to keep working hard, but one day seeing Jeetendra talking to someone in Marathi on the set, Shantaram offered him a small role in his film ‘Navrang’.
An anecdote happened to them during the film ‘Navrang’. In the film, Jeetendra plays a small role along with heroin Sandhya. There is a scene in which Jeetendra had to speak a dialogue in front of the film’s hero Ulhas that ‘Sardar enemy is growing like a locust swarm’ and this line Jeetendra could not speak properly, even after 25 retakes when he did not If he was able to speak, Shantaram allowed that dialogue to remain like this in the film.
Jeetendra has worked with more than one heroine in his time, but he is most closely associated with Rekha, Sridevi and Jaya Prada. In the 70s and 80s, Jeetendra gave many hits. However, some of his films were such that they could not impress the audience and got beaten up badly. Moreover, the names of these films were also very strange.
In 1967 a film came out ‘Gunahon Ka Devta’. Jayshree was in the lead role with Jeetendra in this film and this film did not do anything special. His second film ‘Boond Jo Ban Gaye Moti’, which came out in the same year, also did not do much. Generally, most of Shantaram’s films were successful but the audience did not like his film much. Although the pair of Jeetendra and Mumtaz was very much liked in it.
In the 80s, Jeetendra turned to South films and worked as a hero in the remakes of all the big hits there. During this, Jeetendra’s pair in films was made with heroines like Sridevi and Jaya Prada and most of Jeetendra’s films that came with him were also hits. But still he got the taste of flop in some films like ‘Nalayak’, ‘Hum Tere Aashiq Hain’, ‘Jal Mahal’ and ‘Takkar’.
In his career, Jitendra played all kinds of characters, from romantic hero to serious even played an elderly character and he was also liked in every character. He himself said in an interview that in eight years I worked in 60 films which is a record in itself.
Today Jeetendra is away from films but is completely busy in his business and in his family.
