The legendary Dharmendra was filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s favourite actor. And Rajesh Khanna who was extremely possessive about his favourite directors didn’t like thie partiality at all. Hrishida told me how irked “Kaka”(Khanna) would get when he gave the “wrong” answer to the question, ‘Hrishida, who is your favourite actor?’
Hrishida told me, “Dharmendra was always my favourite. He starred in my all-time favourite film from my repertoire Satyakam.”
I can’t recall Hrishida mentioning that Dharmendra was considered for Anand. It therefore came as a surprise to hear Dharmendra say that he was “upset” that Anand went to Rajesh Khanna after Hrishida had spoken to Dharmendra about it.
Maybe Hrishida did mention Anand to Dharmendra. Although he was not in the habit of offering the same role to several actors. For that we must turn to the late Rituparno Ghosh who offered Bariwali simultaneously to Raakhee Gulzar and Jaya Bachchan but finally cast Kirron Kher when her husband Anupam Kher agreed to producer Bariwali.