He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, and was dubbed India’s “angry young man” for his on-screen roles in Bollywood.
Before setting the silver screen on fire, Bachchan was a former stage actor, radio announcer, and freight company executive in Calcutta, India.
He began his career in films in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen’s ‘Bhuvan Shome’. Director Satyajit Ray also used Bachchan’s voice in his 1977 film ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’. Though Bachchan is now famous for his baritone, among other things, he was once rejected by All India Radio.
Amitabh Bachchan went through multiple phases of extreme physical and financial challenges, which almost broke him to shatters. Bachchan was struggling, seen as a “failed newcomer” who, by the age of 30, had twelve flops and only two hits. In such circumstances and after so many downfalls, anyone can lose strength to move on but he came back and made a fresh start over and over again.
He is, no ordinary man! He is the first living Asian to have a wax model displayed at Madame Tussaud’s in London in June 2000. Later in 2009, another wax model was displayed in New York, in 2011 in Hong Kong and Bangkok, in 2012 in Washington DC and in 2017 in Delhi.
Bachchan has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won fifteen Filmfare Awards.
Amitabh accepted his failures and dealt with his health issues and which helped him to keep going. What we should learn from him is that if we dwell in the past we get caught in the cycle of cribbing and being sad. While if we accept it, we get space to come out of the cycle and that’s how we move on and work towards resolving and not repeating our mistakes.