Happy birthday Jeetendra: How actor made his debut in Navrang as Sandhya's body double

Jeetendra celebrates his 81st birthday today on Friday. Born as Ravi Kapoor in Amritsar on April 7, 1942, the actor worked in the Hindi film industry for more than six decades and headlined multiple critically and commercially acclaimed films such as Farz, Himmatwala, Parichay, Dharam Veer, and The Burning Train among others.

But do you that Jeetendra made his debut in V. Shantaram's Navrang in which he played Sandhya's body double? Well, there's an interesting story behind the same. The actor's father Amarnath Kapoor supplied artificial jewellery for films and the then-young Ravi often delivered the same to the film studios.

Ravi's father requested the director V. Shantaram to allow his son on the latter's film sets when the young lad expressed his desire to see the shooting of a film. But, the filmmaker was very particular about visitors on his sets and thus, he suggested Ravi become a junior artist. Jeetendra, who was in his teens then, was selected to become part of the song Tu Chhupi Hai Kahan, Main Tadapta Yahan in Navrang.

Jeetendra explained the rest of the tale in his old interview to Rediff.com. "We were shooting in Bikaner. Mr. V Shantaram was very particular about timing. I arrived late for dinner and he got very angry and told the production team to send me back. They told my make-up man not to get me ready for the next day’s shoot", the actor said.

The 81-year-old actor further added, "The next morning, I got up at 5 am and requested my make-up man to get me ready. I went to Mr V Shantaram’s room in tears. He saw me all dressed up and was impressed. Since then, I left no chance to please him. I would do his chamchagiri (sycophancy) and did whatever he asked. So I even became a body double for Sandhya."

Jeetendra made his debut as a leading hero in V. Shantaram-directed Geet Gaaya Pattharon Ne in 1964. Before his first film, Ravi Kapoor adopted Jeetendra as his screen name. Interestingly, Jeetendra's daughter Ekta Kapoor named her son Ravie Kapoor, which she welcomed through surrogacy in 2019, after her father.

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