Bhagwan Dada

Bhagwan Dada Biography

Bhagwan Dada was an ace comedian of Bollywood yesterdays. He was a Bollywood film director too. He was one among the first Bollywood actors who established himself as a comedian and later, many actors stepped into his shoes and followed him as their role model. Albela – released in 1951 is mostly remembered for the hit songs pictured on Dada, particularly, "Shola Jo Bhadke" and “Bholi surat hai dil ke khote”. He was the film director and lead hero of the movie too. Geeta Bali played lead role in Albela. His facial expressions and body language made both these songs so popular and even adored today. All the songs pictured on him were sung by renowned music composer C. Ramchandra, who composed the music of all songs of Albela as well.

His real name is Bhagwan Abhaji Palav and he was born in Mumbai in the year 1913, August 1 in a poor family. His father was a textile mill worker. Dada got attracted to movies at a younger age and started dreaming about movies. His love to movies prompted him to work in silent movies in bit roles and slowly he learnt the art of film making. He also worked in studios as assistant and later started making movies of low budget. He also assigned many of the tasks himself so that he can reduce overall budget.

Bahadur Kisan in 1938 marked his debut as a film director. He co-directed the movie aside Pawan. Then for about one decade, till 1949 he made low budget movies. He acted in most of the movies as well. He gave importance to action and his movies appealed middle class a lot. He entered production field in the early 1940’s. He was the owner of Jagriti Studios in the late 1940’s. In 1942, while picturing a scene, he had to slap actress Lalita Pawar. But his slap was so strong that she underwent treatment for next three years and one of her eyes became defective as well.

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Updated: March 24, 2014