Some days ago an auditorium in Mumbai reverberated with thunderous applause. It was the collective response of an audience of five generations to one of the greatest stars and cult figures of Indians Cinema, no doubt, the one and only Shammi Kapoor. He was old and ailing. He was a shadow of what he was when he ruled and swayed the hearts of millions. The Osnian Cine Festival was honoring him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Aamir Khan who was in Chennai flew down specially to pay his tribute to the man he called "The only one of his kind." He was airing the opinion of five generations of grateful people whose lives were brightened by his luminous light. It was a time to go back and remember the glorious chapter written by one man who was an institution and a school very few can follow or imitate. Many have tried but no one has succeeded and no one will, I am sure…

Some twenty two years ago Prince Charles, the heir to the throne of Great Britain was on his first ever visit to Mumbai. One of the few places he visited was the Rajkamal Studios built by Dr. V. Shantaram, one of the doyens of Indian Cinema. Dr. Shantaram and his son Kiran took him around and it was during his round that Padmini Kolhapure made front page photographs of every paper in the country when she kissed the prince in the glare of the entire media. It was also during this visit that Dr. Shantaram introduced Shammi Kapoor who was shooting there that evening and told the Prince, "He is one of the greatest stars of our country. There have been many other stars who have tried to imitate him but not one of them have been able to come any where near him" and Shammi Kapoor who was ageing and playing father's roles was so moved that he touched the feet of Dr. Shantaram. It was a great moment, a touching moment in Shammi Kapoor's life. Dr. Shantaram had not exaggerated. He didn't have to. He too was great a man, an institution, but he couldn't hold back the truth. Shammi Kapoor was in truth one of the greatest stars of Hindi Cinema, a star apart, a star in a class of his own with a style all his own, a style generations of other stars have tried to follow and have failed miserably.

The story of Shammi Kapoor was a story entirely created by him. He was the second son of Prithviraj Kapoor (Raj Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor were the other two) and acting which was in his genes, came to him naturally. He started acting in plays produced by Prithvi Theatre founded by his father. He got his first break as a leading man in A.R. Kardar's "Jeevan Jyot" for which he was paid a royal sum of Rs. 2,000/ . But the film turned out to be a very big flop and painfully not one of the eighteen films starring him managed to even make any mark (are you listening, Dr. Amitabh Bachchan, you had just nine flops in a row before you made it?) It was a record that was enough to throw Shammi out of the industry but he survived to conquer and what a way he conquered!

Shammi gave himself and his career a serious thought. He decided to go in for a change and do something very different from what the ruling stars, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor were doing.

Shammi in a desperate attempt to save himself, got together both Elvis Presley and Cliff Richards and their style and created a new image for himself. He created a dance style which defied every form of dance and used the kind of body movements which some learned critics called "The movements of a man gone crazy, bordering on the wild." To add to all his own attempts he had music directors like Shankar Jaikishen, song writers Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri who made music which matched the wild movements and moods of Shammi. One other man who Shammi himself admits played the most part in his success story was singer Mohammad Rafi.

Shammi was known as the first rebel star of Indian films and he reveled in this new image for which the entire credit went to no one else but him. His reign as the rebel star started with his singing "Yahoo!" in the first Eastman color film called "Junglee" in which the beautiful Saira Banu made her debut. The stupendous success of the film inspired other filmmakers to cast him in similar boisterous roles in equally pompous and loud titles like "Bluff Master", "Badtameez", "Jaanwar" and "Jhoota Kahin Ka" and when things got better he had films with more sober titles like "Prince" and "Professor" but it was only the titles that changed because neither the filmmakers nor his countless fans wanted to see any change in the rebel star.

It was this image on screen which gradually even affected his personal life. He lived a rough life. He had the best of cars and had the best women willing to even shed their blood for him. His parties were the wildest in the city. He even called himself a prince wherever he went abroad and his hosts believed him and gave him the same treatment they gave royalty from any other country.

This reign of Shammi Kapoor the rebel star lasted till he lost his first wife, one of the most talented actresses of the Hindi screen, Geeta Bali from whom he had two children, Aditya and Kanchan who is now married to Ketan Desai, the son of Manmohan Desai. The death of his wife turned him philosophical overnight. He gave up all his wild ways and went away into the mountains to find peace. It was during one of his lonely walks that he came across a rare religious guide who was only twelve but gave him lessons "which a hundred year old Pundit or philosopher would never have given me." That one meeting changed the entire life of Shammi. He came back after several months, fat, balding, graying and almost unrecognizable. He again went into a shell from which he was brought out by some of his very close friends. He took a decision to direct films and made "Manoranjan" which was inspired by the Hollywood hit, "Irma La Douce" with Zeenat Aman, Sanjeev Kumar and himself. The film made for his partner and friend, F C Mehra flopped miserably and Shammi has never thought of directing a film again.

He then took to playing character roles and was very successful until very recently when he was struck by a serious kidney ailment. He is now a very sick man undergoing dialysis four times a week but he still has that streak of the rebel in him. Whenever he feels better and is off dialysis he gets into his best Mercedes and drives off to the nearest hill station or wherever some of his friends are shooting where he says he finds all the satisfaction and forgets all his pain. Otherwise, he is busy with his computer, incidentally he was a pioneer in the use of computers when they first came to India.

Shammi is a broken man now, "but only in the body because no ailment can damage my spirit which always keeps soaring high. I will always be grateful to God for giving me the life of a Prince and I challenge any Prince anywhere in the world to live the kind of life I have lived" he says gleefully. We at Movietalkies.com wish a healthy and long life to the Yahoo! star on his birthday.