Sridevi & Her Heroes: Why the Actor Stopped Working With Big B

Sridevi was a superstar even among her male co-stars who depended on her to save their careers.

The following is an excerpt from Sridevi’s biography titled Sridevi: Queen of Hearts by Lalita Iyer.

While Sridevi was riding high, Anil Kapoor jumped onto the bandwagon; so did Mithun Chakraborty, Sunny Deol, Rishi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha. At the time, Rajesh Khanna was desperate for a second innings, so he too joined the party. He graduated from doing two-heroine films to two-hero films and Sridevi managed to keep Kaka in the game for a few more years with Maqsad, Masterji, Nazrana and Naya Kadam.

However, in an interview to Movie magazine in November 1987, Rajesh Khanna said, “If you go by trade reports, she is undoubtedly the No. 1 heroine. However, ours is a male-dominated industry and a woman can never replace the hero. Never. The only heroine who posed a threat to the heroes was Hema Malini—for years. She ruled the masses and classes and the entire country came to see her. Mumtaz was also there, but she was always second to Hema.”

Sridevi then resuscitated Rishi Kapoor’s career and they went on to do five films together: Chandni, Banjaran, Nagina, Gurudev and Kaun Sachcha Kaun Jhootha. Among these, Chandni and Nagina were the most successful, with the songs smashing all records.

Sridevi now called the shots; she had come a long way. ‘Earlier producers used to take me for outdoor shooting to godforsaken places like Rajmundry where the shooting conditions were bad. I used to be there at their mercy for twenty days at a stretch, burning in the sun, bearing all the discomfiture. Today, it’s different. My producers ask me, Madam, where would you like to shoot? Ooty, Simla, Switzerland. That’s it. I guess things change with success,’ she said in a Stardust interview in October 1989.

Sri was even able to impart a softer image on Amitabh with Inquilaab, Aakhree Raasta and Khuda Gawah. However, running around in badly designed pyjama suits with smocks while she was in a pink shimmer dress trying to seduce him in ‘Aaj abhi yahin’ (Inquilaab, 1984) was not very becoming of Amitabh at fifty, and, in any case, their chemistry wasn’t exactly breaking the box office.

Shashi Kapoor would have liked Sridevi to star in Ajooba along with Amitabh but Sridevi was not too keen; the role did not convince her, and it went to Dimple. Also, it was tough to put Amitabh and Sridevi in one movie because it would skyrocket the film’s budget. In an interview in 1987, Sridevi said, ‘I have never said I won't work with Amit-ji. But then what’s there for any artist to do in a film starring him? He does everything himself.’

By the time she was offered Khuda Gawah, Sridevi had already declared, ‘No more minuscule roles in Bachchan starrers!’ But she finally agreed on the condition that she would play both the roles of mother and daughter (the daughter’s role was initially offered to Shaheen, Saira Banu’s niece). The audience did appreciate Khuda Gawah, but Bachchan and Sridevi didn’t have much onscreen time together since the movie was all about viraha (parting).

The film, advertised as having India's No. 1 actor with India’s No. 1 actress, was undoubtedly made on a colossal budget; it opened to a great response but was an average hit. Both Sridevi and Amitabh got rave reviews for their performances. Sridevi was nominated for best actress, and till date is the only actress who has done a double role in a movie with Bachchan. She pushed for screen time which was on par with her male co-leads, as well as for equal pay—long before these were widely discussed topics.

In many ways Sridevi’s career mirrored Bachchan’s with whom she was constantly compared. They both started out as purely actors under serious filmmakers: Bachchan with K.A. Abbas and Hrishikesh Mukherjee; Sridevi with K. Balachander, P. Bharathiraja and J. Mahendran. Just as Bachchan made the transition from actor to star through Salim-Javed films and, later, as an all-round entertainer-performer with the films of Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra, so did Sridevi—except for her, the transition was from Tamil/Telugu to Hindi films.

The Anil Kapoor-Sridevi jodi didn’t create much magic at the box office. Of their thirteen films together, only five were hits: Judaai, Laadla, Jaanbaaz, Mr India and Karma (and they were not always paired with each other). The rest were flops: Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja, Aasman se Gira, Heer Ranjha, Lamhe, Joshilaay, Gurudev, Mr Bechara, Sone pe Suhaaga and Ram Avtar.

The most beloved film was, of course, Mr India, in which Anil remained largely invisible. The role was originally written for Amitabh, who did not do the film because of differences with Salim-Javed and, for years, it was Anil’s biggest claim to fame that he had walked into a role originally written for Mr Bachchan.

(Excerpted with permission from Sridevi: Queen of Hearts by Lalita Iyer. To be published on 28 September 2018 by Westland Publishing.)