32 Facts About Dilip Kumar

Mohammed Yusuf Khan, better known by his stage name Dilip Kumar, was an Indian actor who worked in Hindi cinema.

The 1970s saw Dilip Kumar's career take a downturn, marked by three consecutive commercial underperformers, namely Dastaan, Sagina and Bairaag.

Dilip Kumar later served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament, from 2000 to 2006.

Dilip Kumar was in a long-term relationship with actress and frequent co-star Madhubala that ended after the Naya Daur court case in 1957.

Dilip Kumar married actress Saira Banu in 1966 and resided in Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai, until his death in 2021.

Dilip Kumar was awarded India's highest accolade in the field of cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994.

The house that Dilip Kumar grew up in, located in Peshawar, was declared a national heritage monument in 2014 by the Pakistani government.

Dilip Kumar was born as Mohammad Yusuf Khan on 11 December 1922, into a Hindko-speaking Hindkowan Awan Muslim family at his family home in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar neighbourhood of Peshawar, a city in the North-West Frontier Province of British India.

In 1961, Dilip Kumar wrote, produced, and starred in the dacoit drama Ganga Jamuna opposite his brother Nasir Khan, playing the title roles.

In 1962, British director David Lean offered him the role of "Sherif Ali" in his film Lawrence of Arabia, but Dilip Kumar declined to perform in the movie.

In 1967, Dilip Kumar played a dual role of twins separated at birth in the hit film Ram Aur Shyam.

In 1968, he starred alongside Manoj Dilip Kumar in Aadmi which was an average grosser at the box office.

In 1970, Dilip Kumar played the title role in Gopi which marked his first pairing with wife Saira Banu and was a box office success.

The rise of actors like Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Dilip Kumar led to Dilip Kumar losing film offers from 1970 to 1980.

Dilip Kumar took a five-year hiatus from films from 1976 to 1981.

Dilip Kumar acted opposite Nutan again in the 1989 action film Kanoon Apna Apna which reunited him with Sanjay Dutt.

In 1991, Dilip Kumar starred alongside fellow veteran actor Raaj Dilip Kumar in Saudagar, his third and last film with director Subhash Ghai.

In 1998, Dilip Kumar made his last film appearance in the box office flop Qila, where he played dual roles as an evil landowner who is murdered and as his twin brother who tries to solve the mystery of his death.

Dilip Kumar was a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament, from 2000 to 2006.

In 1966, Dilip Kumar married actress Saira Banu, who was 22 years younger than him.

Dilip Kumar later married Hyderabad socialite Asma Rahman, taking her as a second wife in 1981.

Dilip Kumar's younger brother Nasir Khan was a noted film actor.

Dilip Kumar died at Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, on 7 July 2021 at 7:30 am, aged 98.

Dilip Kumar, who pioneered his own form of method acting without any acting school experience, was described as "the ultimate method actor" by renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray, despite not having worked with him.

Dilip Kumar was the biggest Indian star of the 1950s and 1960s era, a national icon and the country's highest paid actor during this period.

Dilip Kumar's name was almost a guarantee of success not only at the time of the release of the film but even in re-runs his films made more money than fresh releases of many of his contemporaries.

Dilip Kumar is the only actor in India to have delivered at least one bonafide "hit" at the box office for 15 years straight, from 1947 to 1961.

Dilip Kumar did not give a single flop in a period of 15 years from 1952 to 1965.

Dilip Kumar was appointed Sheriff of Mumbai for 1980.

Dilip Kumar was honoured with CNN-IBN's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.

However, in 1999, in consultation with the then Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Dilip Kumar retained the award.

Dilip Kumar was voted the "Greatest Indian Actor of All Time" in a Rediff Readers poll in 2011.