Dharmendra’s First Crush: Popular Bollywood actor Dharmendra came from a village in Punjab and dominated Hindi cinema. He made a place in people’s hearts with his films and today, even at the age of 85, Dharmendra is still working in films. Before coming into films, Dharmendra was a fan of an actress and used to go to watch her films and he himself told about this.
Dharmendra had told that he used to walk miles every day for 40 days to watch the movies of that actress. The name of that actress is Suraiya, whom Dharmendra still mentions sometimes in his talks.
What did Dharmendra say in praise of Suraiya?
Dharmendra entered the film industry in the 60s. Dharmendra entered with a great body, strong voice and smart look and girls were crazy about him in that era. Dharmendra’s father used to be a teacher but Dharmendra wanted to work in films. In an interview, Dharmendra had said that he loved films and Suraiya was his favourite actress. He said that he had seen Suraiya’s film Dillagi 40 times and he used to walk miles in the city to watch it.
After watching her films so many times, Dharmendra decided that he wanted to become an actor. Suraiya was a famous actress of that era and was very beautiful. Dharmendra often used to mention her beauty and used to say that he had rarely seen a woman as beautiful as her.
Who was Suraiya?
If we talk about Suraiya, she made her debut in the year 1936 with the film Madam Fashion. Apart from this film, Suraiya worked in films like ‘Anmol Ghadi’, ‘Mirza Ghalib’, ‘Dillagi’, ‘Dastan’, ‘Dard’ and ‘Badi Bahan’. Suraiya’s full name was Suraiya Jamal Sheikh and she died on 31 January 2004. Suraiya did fewer films but she had a huge fan following and Dharmendra was also among her fans.
Later I met Hema Malini
Dharmendra got married to Prakash Kaur at the age of 19. He had 4 children with her but in 1975, Dharmendra and Hema Maliki started getting closer. In 1980, Dharmendra converted to Islam and married Hema for the second time. Dharmendra and Hema were a superhit couple of that era who gave many great films together. Dharmendra and Hema have two daughters, Esha and Ahana Deol.