Ashok Kumar

Ashok Kumar was an Indian actor who ranked among the country's best known film performers. Born in 1911, he started as an assistant to the Bengali filmmaker Himanshu Rai and stumbled into acting when he volunteered to replace the lead of Jeevan Naya (1936) before work began on Achhut Kanya (1936). He was nervous about playing opposite Devika Rani, yet the role brought unexpected acclaim, and he went on to more Bombay Talkies pictures with her, also helping with editing, mixing and processing. His breakthrough came with Kismet (1943), a Hindi mega-hit that played in Bombay and Calcutta for three years and made him nationally famous. He appeared in over 200 Hindi films and a few in other Indian languages, playing romantic leads and villains before taking supporting parts and cameos as he grew older. He died in 2001.