Remembering Uttam Kumar (born Arun Kumar Chatterjee) (3 September 1926 – 24 July 1980) was an Indian film actor, director, producer, singer and music composer who predominantly worked in Bengali Cinema. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and classic actors of Indian cinema and known as honorific Mahanayak. He remains as much of a cultural icon. Through his career he has earned commercial as well as critical adulation. Considered as one of the most popular film stars in the history of Indian cinema, Kumar managed to have a huge fan following, that mainly concentrated in the regions of Bengal and Bangladesh. In his lifetime, he was a recipient of many awards, including National Film Award for Best Actor. In his honour, a Metro Station was renamed in Kolkata. Uttam Kumar was born in Kolkata at the home of his maternal uncle at Ahiritola, while his ancestral house is on Girish Mukherjee Road, Bhowanipore. After his schooling in South Suburban School (Main), he went for higher studies in Goenka College of Commerce and Business Administration, a college affiliated to the University of Calcutta. He could not complete his studies and started working at the Kolkata Port trust as a clerk. During this period, he acted in amateur theatre groups. His prodigious joint family had its own theatre group, the Suhrid Samaj, which staged many amateur shows. Uttam Kumar was the eldest of three sons (Arun, Barun and Tarun) of Satkari Chatterjee and Chapala Debi. The youngest, whose screen name was Tarun Kumar, acted in several Bengali films and grew to become an actor of considerable repute, in screen and on stage. There are several films in which Uttam Kumar and Tarun Kumar starred together like Saptapadi, Sonar Harin, Maya Mriga, Sesh Anka, Deya Neya, Jeeban-Mrityu, Dhanyi Meye,Mon Niye, Sanyasi Raja, Kamal lata and Agniswar. Uttam Kumar married Gauri Debi [Chatterjee][nee Ganguly]. Their only son, Gautam, died of cancer at the age of 53. His grandson, Gaurav Chatterjee is a Bengali television actor. Pulak Bandyopadhyay, a noted lyricist, was his uncle. Rajesh Khanna once said about Kumar: He is the perfect ambassador of Bengal. No one carries Bengali culture in a Kurta and Dhoti as well as he does. Source: Wikipedia youtu.be/ED77z2OsqPM
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 19:16:25 +0000
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