Sanjeev Kumar is remembered as one of the finest actors in the Hindi film industry. His tremendous acting, excellent style of speaking dialogues and impressive work made him huge. The actor was born on 9 July 1938 in Surat in a Gujarati family. When he was very young, he came to Mumbai. A stunt in a film school led him to Bollywood, after which he worked hard and never looked back. Although he died in the year 1985 at the age of 47, his fans still remember him. He played the character of “Thakur Baldev Singh” in the film Sholay. But do you know that Sanjeev did not want to play this character.

Sanjeev Kumar wanted to become Gabbar

Almost everyone must have seen the film Sholay. From the story of the film to Jai-Veeru’s friendship and Gabbar Singh’s dialogues are quite famous. When Gabbar Singh used to say to Sambha, ‘Kitne aadmi the’… The mother used to tell the children, ‘Sleep or else Gabbar will come’. The dialogue made Amjad Khan immortal. In such a situation, do you know that Sanjeev Kumar, who played the iconic role of Thakur, wanted to play Gabbar in the film. According to media reports, he had told the makers that he would play the role of Gabbar. However, Ramesh Sippy did not approve of this at all. He used to see Sanjeev not as Thakur’s dacoit but as Thakur. After which Amjad Khan got this iconic role.

Amjad Khan was not the first choice to play Gabbar Singh

Famous writers of Hindi cinema Javed Akhtar and Salin Khan wrote the entire story of Sholay. The powerful dialogues of every character of this film are still on people’s lips. According to reports, Javed Akhtar’s first choice for the role of Gabbar Singh was Danny Denzongpa and he was also offered the role, but he turned it down. Danny was busy shooting for Feroz Khan’s film ‘Dharmatma’ in those days, due to which he could not work in ‘Sholay’.

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sanjeev kumar movies

He won several major awards, including two National Film Awards for Best Actor, for his performances in the films Dastak (1970) and Koshish (1972). Sanjeev Kumar didn’t mind playing roles that were non-glamorous, such as characters much beyond his age. Sholay (1975), Arjun Pandit (1976) and Trishul (1978), Khilona (1970), Naya Din Nayi Raat (1974), Yeh Hai Zindagi (1977), Devta (1978) and Ram Tere Kitne Naam (1985) are his versatile Example of talent. He also did suspense-thriller films like Shikar (1968), Uljhan (1975) and Trishna (1978) and Qatl (1986).