Happy Birthday Prem Chopra: In the 70’s, a villain came to Bollywood who gave tough competition to the big villains of the industry. One of his dialogues created a stir and later many of his other dialogues also became famous. Prem Chopra, who spoke dialogues like ‘Nanga Nahega Kya Aur Nichoega Kya’ and ‘Kal Bhala To Ho Bhala’ in his own style, is a veteran actor of Bollywood.
There has been a lot of craze among the general public about Prem Chopra. A dialogue from ‘Bobby’ (1973) made Prem Chopra famous but the same dialogue also created trouble for the railways. Prem Chopra told this story during an interview.
How did Prem Chopra’s dialogue become a problem?
During a conversation with Bollywood Bubble, Prem Chopra told many of his stories. But the most interesting story was about the train. Prem Chopra’s dialogue in the film Bobby was ‘Prem…Prem naam hai mera…Prem Chopra.’ After speaking this dialogue, the actor told the story. Prem Chopra said that once he was traveling in a superfast train and the people in the train came to know about it. Then what happened was that people repeatedly requested him for the same dialogue and asked him to speak it in the same style on the platform.
Prem Chopra told that the superfast train which stops at some stations had to stop at the station again and again because the noise of the people sitting inside was forcing the railways to do so. This continued till the last station and then he thought that he will now ignore travelling by train or else Indian Railways will face problems.
How did you get the role in ‘Bobby’?
Prem Chopra had told in this interview that he had got the role of a boy in Bobby whose name is also Prem Chopra. Raj Kapoor saw him in a party and said, ‘You will work in my next film.’ Prem Chopra was happy with this and started asking what his role would be, which film it would be and many other things but Raj Kapoor said ‘I will tell you’ and went away.
Prem Chopra said, ‘One day I got the news that Raj Kapoor has called me to Pune. When I reached there, Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia were standing there. Then Raj Kapoor sahab said that I have the role of a villain and this is my only dialogue. I was surprised and said just one dialogue. Then Raj sahab said this one dialogue will make you famous forever. I thought in my mind what is he saying. But he proved to be right.’ ‘Prem….Prem naam hai mera…Prem Chopra’ gave recognition to the actor and then he did many films in the industry in which he played the villain.
How many movies did Prem Chopra do?
Prem Chopra was born on 23 September 1935 in Lahore, British India (now in Pakistan) and belongs to a Punjabi family. He married Uma Chopra in 1969 and has three daughters Prerna, Punita and Ratika. Prerna is married to actor Sarman Joshi.
88-year-old Prem Chopra is still seen in some event or the other. Prem Chopra made his debut in 1960 with the film Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh. Prem Chopra has done around 125 films in his career so far, in most of which he played the villain.