The He-Man Everyone Loved

It wasn't just the sheer good looks but equally his underrated range as an actor over six decades that made Dharmendra a people's darling and a Bollywood legend

- Suhani Singh

" I love camera and camera loves me." It was something Dharmendra repeated often, but it was always his manner of saying it that made it seem like he was stating an obvious, established fact rather than making a compulsive attempt at self-aggrandisement like stars are prone to do.

Yes, the camera did love him. For his earthy Adonis looks and robust, farm-fresh physique that once got him called one of the world's most handsome men. But also for a certain ease with roles. Maybe he was not your intense method actor, with deep hues in his histrionic palette. But tenderness, rage, impish comedy, he had such a naturalistic way with all of it that it was liable to be missed by critics. Audiences didn't care. For 65 years across 300 films, they never tired of gazing at him.

Be it as the young doctor who waits for a woman to reciprocate his love in Bandini (1963), one of his earliest notable roles, or the lovable rogue who teeters drunkenly atop a water tank in Sholay (1975), Dharmendra was always the natural cynosure of all eyes.

Across gender. Women swooned over his boundless good looks, and sensitive lip-syncing of classics like 'Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas' or 'Ya Dil Ki Suno'. Men loved his ruggedness. No one on either side complained when he became one of the first mainstream actors to go shirtless (in Phool aur Patthar, 1964).