Flashback Friday: ‘We ask the question only once and our ears cannot hear no. If we listen, embers start coming out of our ears. ‘We also have land in Rajasthan and landlords of your status keep coming to greet us every morning.’ Both these dialogues cannot fit anyone other than Rajkumar. Rajkumar is that Bollywood actor whose attitude is exactly the same in reel and real life. His stories are not just one but thousands and each story is interesting in itself.
Let us talk about some of those special stories of Rajkumar, where his style was exactly the same as you might have seen in films like Tiranga and Saudagar. Rajkumar was the only actor of his kind. His style of speaking, walking and talking remained the same in films and in the outside world. The time when the world used to go crazy about big superstars like Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan. Even at that time, Rajkumar had hurt them with his taunting tone.
Rajkumar who left the film due to smell of oil
You must have heard many stories related to the film Zanjeer that it was rejected by actors like Dharmendra and Devanand and this film gave Amitabh Bachchan recognition as an angry young man. But do you know that the director of the film had also approached Rajkumar with the script of Zanjeer and Rajkumar had rejected the film. The reason was very strange. Actually, Rajkumar had refused to do the film only because he did not like the fragrance of jasmine oil applied on the head of director Prakash Mehra.
Rajkumar did not spare even Amitabh
During a party, Amitabh Bachchan arrived wearing a nice suit. Rajkumar was also present in this party. Rajkumar praised Amitabh’s suit. On this, Amitabh wanted to tell the address of the place from where he got the suit made. Even before this the prince said – ‘Actually we had to get some curtains stitched. We liked the fabric of your suit very much, we want to make the curtains of our house like this.
When even Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra were not spared
While sharing the experience of working with Rajkumar, Mukesh Khanna had narrated an incident during the shooting of a film. He told that actors like Dharmendra and Jitendra were also working in the film. When Mukesh Khanna entered the set, he looked at everyone and said, “Honey, you have gathered a lot of juniors.” Hearing this, the director remained silent.
Govinda also made fun of
Two stories of Rajkumar and Govinda are quite famous. Both of them worked together in the film Jangbaaz. Govinda is a good dancer, so Rajkumar praised him. When Govinda became happy at this, the prince also pulled his leg. He said- Sometimes give the heroine a chance to dance too, man. Apart from this, during this film, Rajkumar also praised Govinda’s shirt. Happy Govinda immediately went to the make-up room and changed his shirt and gifted him the same shirt. Govinda felt that Rajkumar would like this shirt. But what the prince did left Govinda speechless. After a few days, he was seen using the handkerchief made from the same shirt. When Govinda saw him wiping his nose with the handkerchief of the same shirt, he was quite disappointed.
Nana Patekar was called illiterate
Both Nana and Rajkumar worked together in the film Tiranga. Filmmaker Mehul Kumar had told during an interview that Rajkumar did not know that Nana was working with him, then he had said – ‘I have heard that he is a very illiterate person. He also uses abusive language.” The filmmaker had also told that there was a very heated atmosphere during the shooting of the film. However, later the sourness in their relationship went away.
How did Rajkumar enter films?
Every story of Rajkumar is interesting, so how can the story related to his entry in films also not be interesting. The real Rajkumar was neither planning to enter films nor did he have any connection with Bollywood. Rajkumar was a sub-inspector in the police and the police station where he was posted was in Mumbai. People associated with the film industry often used to come and go there. Director Baldev Dubey had also come there for some work. He liked Rajkumar’s style of conversation so much that he offered him to work as an actor in the film ‘Shahi Bazaar’. It was from here that Rajkumar entered films.
