Hrishikesh Mukherjee

Hrishikesh Mukherjee Biography

Hrishikesh Mukherjee is known to be a sucecsful director of Bollywood who has given films of all categories – from social dramas and melodramas to romance and comedy. He directed 42 movies and is known to be ‘the pioneer of the 'middle cinema' of India’ for the valuable contributions he has given to middle aged cinema. He has been honoured with Dada Phalke Award in 1991 and Padma Vibhooshan in 2001.

Originally, Hrishikesh Mukherjee is from Bengal who started his Bollywood career behind camera. He worked as assistant director for milestone movies of Bimal Roy – Do bheega zameen and Devdas. His first movie as director was a big flop – Musafir (1957). But two years later, he tasted the first success of his career through Nutan-Raj Kapoor starrer Anari. He is one among those directors who have curved the best actors of Bollywood Big B, Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra through the movies Namak Haraam, Abhimaan, Anand and Satyakam. He casted Big B and Rajesh Khanna in two movies - Namak Haraam and Anand, which gave new life to both the superstars’ career. Asirwaad – the movie that saw the finest performance of Ashok Kumar, winning him Filmfare and national awards was also directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Though he is famous for romantic movies and social dramas, he has directed a few comedy movies too. Big successes of 70’s include a few movies belonging to this category - Chupke chupke, Guddi, Golmaal and Naram Garam. Then he took a break from industry and came back through the comedy – Jhoot bole kauwa kate in 1998. The movie with Juhi Chawla and Anil Kapoor, failed at box office and after that, he didn’t direct movies anymore.

His most successful movies include Anari, Abhimaan, Asli Naqli, Guddi, Namak Haram, Anand, Golmaal, Anupama, Bawarchi, Ashirwaad, Mili, Satyakaam, Anuradha, Chupke chupke and Khoobsurat. He has also worked as editor of movies like Chemmen (Malayalam), Parinitha, Devdas, Dustak and Coolie. He has produced and has written story for a few movies like Aalap. He has won best director, story, screenplay and editor for the movie “Anand’. He has done best editing award for movies – Madhumathi and Naukari too. He was given best editor award for Madhumathi and Khoobsurat won his best movie award.

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Updated: June 03, 2018