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Rishi Kapoor was a man of spoken words. He had opinions, and he flaunted them. Also, he was a man who always owned up to his mistakes. In many of his interviews, the Bobby actor revealed that his young life was not very inspiring. In one such interview, he mentioned buying an award. An award he feared losing to his contemporary.
That contemporary was none other than Amitabh Bachchan. It was 1973, and both the stars were nominated for their films in the Best Actor category for a popular award show. While one debuted with Bobby, the other had a breakthrough as the Angry Young Man in Zanjeer.
Reports say that everyone was convinced that the tall, dark, and handsome man would win the black lady, and to everyone’s surprise, it was Rishi Kapoor who won the best actor award for Bobby. However, the late actor much later confessed to buying that award. Scroll down to read this interesting anecdote.
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In his autobiography Khullam Khulla, the Kapoor & Sons actor revealed someone from the awards committee connecting to his manager. He narrated, “I was all of 20-21 years old. I was suddenly a huge star after ‘Bobby’. I was a real brat. I was flying in those days… Somebody came to me and said that ‘We can get this award… Would you like to have it?’ So I said ‘Sure’. The person said it will cost Rs 30,000… Back then, it was big money. Who knows, the money would have never reached the guys (organisers)”. I just gave a man that money and don’t know if the guys got it.”
The Prem Rog actor doubts whether he could have won it without the money. Or maybe he did win it without the money. But he regrets taking the bribe route anyway. In an interview with Rajdeep Sardesai, he said, “It was my age, I had no vision, nothing was correct for me at that point in time. I was a rich man’s son, and I felt richer being an actor. I threw money around, and I regret it very much.”
In the same interview, Rishi Kapoor confessed that this started a cold war between him and Amitabh Bachchan, which ended with Yash Chopra’s film Kabhi Kabhie in 1976. Interestingly Rishi Kapoor never mentioned the name of the award he bought, but reports suggest it was the Filmfare Awards 1974.
There were five actors nominated for the Best Actor Category – Amitabh Bachchan for Zanjeer, Dharmendra for Yaadon Ki Baraat, Rajesh Khanna for Daag, Sanjeev Kumar for Koshish and Rishi Kapoor for Bobby.
After winning the award, Rishi ji became the heartthrob of the nation. However, it was very short-lived since Amitabh Bachchan changed the route of Hindi Cinema with action films and his Angry Young Man image.
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