The veteran actor of the entertainment industry, Jeetendra, who earned the name of the 'Jumping Jack of Bollywood' for his moves, is celebrating his 79th birthday today. In his illustrious career, the actor gave several successful films and maximum of them were remakes Telugu blockbusters, which includes Himmatwala, Justice Chaudhury, Tohfa and others. These films were helmed by popular south filmmaker K Raghavendra Rao, with whom Jeetendra collaborated for 11 films. On Jeetendra's special day, we visit to the throwback interview, where he opened up on how he owes his career to the south industry and actresses like Jaya Prada and Sridevi. Also Read - Krystle D'souza, Anita Hassnandani and Rohit Reddy arrive for actor Jeetendra's pre-birthday celebrations - view pics
On K Raghavendra Rao’s talk show, Soundarya Lahiri, Jeetendra opened up on how Telugu industry has turned out to be a gamechanger for him and said, “Telugu is a very beautiful word for me. I owe a lot of things to Telugu people because my first big hit was with the legendary filmmaker LV Prasad. He is my guru. If I called anybody my father after my own, it is him.” The actor recalled how a film named Deedar-E-Yaar, which took five years to complete turned out to be his biggest flop and he ended up losing Rs 2.5 crore at that time.
However, he revealed that around the same time he was shooting for Himmatwala with Raghuvendra Rao, which was just shot in 42 days and turned out to be his career's biggest hit. “With the release of Himmatwala, I bounced back. I made so much money. I forget my loss. And life went on. Two things – Raghavendra Rao and Telugu brought me back to life. Himmatwala was a roaring success,” said the actor. Jeetendra also expressed his feeling, when he came to know that Sridevi will share screen space with him and said, “I was so happy when he said Sridevi was going to star next to me. I used to call Sridevi and Jaya Prada as my bread and butter.”
Here's wishing the legend a very happy birthday!
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