Guru Dutt Family
Bollywood legend Guru Dutt was born on 9 July 1925, in Bangalore. His parents originally named Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone but he changed it to Guru Dutt following a childhood accident, the belief being that it was an auspicious choice.
His parents originally settled in Karwar but relocated Bhowanipore. Dutt spent his early childhood in Bhowanipore. He spoke fluent Bengali.
His sister Lalita Lajmi is a famous Indian painter. His niece Kalpana Lajmi was also a well known Indian film director, producer and screenwriter.
Guru Dutt Biography
Dutt wired home to say he had got the job of a telephone operator at a Lever Brothers factory in Calcutta. But soon he got disenchanted by the job and left it. He later joined his parents in Bombay in 1944.
However, his uncle found him a job under a three-year contract with the Prabhat Film Company in Pune (then called Poona) in 1944.
This contract ended in 1947, but Dutt’s mother got him a job as a freelance assistant with Baburao Pai, the CEO of the Prabhat Film Company and Studio. However, after that, for almost ten months, he remained unemployed and stayed with his family at Matunga in Bombay.
During this time, Dutt developed a flair for writing in English, and wrote short stories for The Illustrated Weekly of India, a local weekly English magazine.
Dutt acted in a small role as Sri Krishna in Chand in 1944. In 1945, he acted as well as assisted director Vishram Bedekar in Lakhrani, and in 1946 he worked as an assistant director and choreographed dances for P. L. Santoshi’s film, Hum Ek Hain.
Dutt’s first film, Navketan’s Baazi, was released in 1951. It was a tribute to the 1940s film noir genre of Hollywood with the morally ambiguous hero, the transgressing siren, and shadow lighting.
Guru Dutt Movies
Dev Anand and Dutt had reached an agreement that if Dutt became filmmaker, he would hire Anand as his hero, and if Anand became a filmaker then he would use Dutt as its director. Anand subsequently used Dutt in his movie Baazi, while Dutt employed Anand in C.I.D.
He discovered, and mentored, Johnny Walker (comedian), V.K. Murthy (cinematographer), and Abrar Alvi (writer-director), among others. People credited him for introducing Waheeda Rehman to the Hindi cinema.
Fortune smiled on Dutt’s next film, the 1954 blockbuster Aar Paar. This was followed by the 1955 hit, Mr. & Mrs. ’55, then C.I.D., Sailaab and in 1957, Pyaasa – the story of a poet, rejected by an uncaring world, who achieves success only after his apparent death.
Dutt played the lead role in three of these five films.
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, a critically and commercially successful film, was directed by his protégé, writer Abrar Alvi, which won him the Filmfare Best Director’s award.
The film starred Tragedy Queen Meena Kumari and Guru Dutt along with Rehman and Waheeda Rehman in supporting roles.
In 1964, Dutt acted in his last film Sanjh Aur Savera, directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, opposite Meena Kumari. Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi was the last film he was working on at the time of his death.
Dharmendra replaced him as the lead and the film released in 1966 as his team’s last production.
Guru Dutt Children
In 1953, Dutt married Geeta Roy Chaudhary, later Geeta Dutt, a well-known playback singer. They had been engaged for three years and had to overcome a great deal of family opposition to marry.
They had three children, Tarun, Arun and Nina, who grew up in the homes of Dutt’s brother Atma Ram and Geeta Dutt’s brother Mukul Roy after their parents died.
Dutt had an unhappy marital life. he was a strict disciplinarian as far as work was concerned, but totally undisciplined in his personal life. He smoked and drank heavily and kept odd hours.
Dutt’s relationship with actress Waheeda Rehman also worked against their marriage. At the time of his death, he had separated from Geeta and was living alone.
Geeta Dutt died in 1972 at age 41, after excessive drinking, which resulted in liver damage.
Guru Dutt Deepika Padukone
She is related to the legendary filmmaker Guru Dutt whose real name was Vasanth Padukone.