Bharat Bhushan

Bharatbhushan Gupta, better known as Bharat Bhushan (14 June 1920 – 27 January 1992) was an Indian actor in Hindi language films, scriptwriter and producer.^[1] He was born in Meerut, and brought up in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh.

Bharat Bhushan began his career in 1941 with a small role in Kidar Sharma's superhit film Chitralekha.^[2] Despite this, his career didn't took off as his films apart from another Kidar Sharma's directional Suhaag Raat (1948) did not perform well commercially.^[3]

In 1952, he appeared and played the lead in Vijay Bhatt's musical romantic drama film Baiju Bawra. The film emerged a huge blockbuster at the box office and made Bhushan a bankable star.^[4] Its music by Naushad and songs by Mohammed Rafi, such as "Tu Ganga Ki Mauj Mein Jamana Ka Dhara", "O Duniya Ke Rakhwale Sunn Dard Bhare Mere Naaley" and "Man Tarpat Hari Darshan Ko Aaj" were also very successful and won Naushad the inaugural Filmfare Award for Best Music Director.^[5] The same year with two more successes, Maa and Anand Math, Bhushan further solidified his stardom. In 1953, he delivered another blockbuster and second highest earner of the year with Ladki, co-starring Vyjayanthimala, Kishore Kumar and Anjali Devi.^[6]

Bharat Bhushan was born as Bharat Raibahadur Motilal Gupta on 14 June 1920 in a Vaishya (Baniya) family at Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India.

His father, Raibahadur Motilal, was the government pleader of Meerut and Supreme Court Judge, Allahabad. He had one older brother. His mother died when he was two years old. The brothers left for Aligarh to stay with their grandfather after their mother's death. He did his studies and earned a graduate degree from Dharam Samaj College, Aligarh. His elder brother was film producer and high court judge, Rameshchandra Gupta,^[7] who owned the Ideal Studio at Lucknow. After studies, he took to acting against his father's wishes. He first went to Kolkata to join cinema and later established himself in Bombay.

He married into a prominent family in Meerut, Zamindar Raibahadur Budha Prakash's daughter Sarla. They had two daughters, Anuradha (who had polio-associated complications) and Aparajita. Bhushan's wife Sarla died of labour complications after delivering their second child in the early 1960s, soon after the release of film Barsaat Ki Raat. In 1967, he married actress Ratna, his co-star from Barsaat Ki Raat. Ratna was a prominent actress who played the sister or friend of the heroine in many films. Among her notable TV appearances was the serial Trishna as mother of the four young girls. It was an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. In an interview, his daughter Aparajita had said that after the sudden demise of her husband, she turned to acting. Aparajita has done more than 50 films and TV serials. She played the role of Mandodari in Ramanand Sagar's famous serial Ramayan.

Bhushan owned a bungalow in Bandra suburb of Bombay. This was the famous Aashirwad bungalow, which he sold to Rajendra Kumar, who in turn sold it to Rajesh Khanna.^[8] This bungalow, was thus home to 3 famous film stars. Bhushan was an avid reader and boasted of a fine collection of books, which he had to sell off like his cars and bungalows in bad times, after he turned co-producer at the instance of his brother. Only two of his films were successes and unfortunately, the rest flopped.^[7] He died after he escaped his financial crisis, on 27 January 1992.^[9]

• Gulzar; Govind Nihalani; Saibal Chatterjee (2003). Encyclopaedia of Hindi cinema. Popular Prakashan. p. 533. ISBN 8179910660.

• Bharat Bhushan at IMDb
• Bharat Bhushan, the tragic hero