The actor was admitted to Breach Candy Hospital on Monday with breathing problems. His wife Jaya Dhawan told TOI over phone: “At his request, we brought him home on Thursday and we set up a makeshift medical center there. But he died the next morning.”
Sudesh was born in 1931 in the pre-independence border town of Peshawar, the birthplace of Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor and the ancestral home of Shah Rukh Khan. Sudesh moved to Mumbai with his family when he was young. “He graduated in science from Elphinstone College. His father wanted him to become a doctor,” Jaya said.
But Kumar joined Prithviraj Kapoor’s troupe. “They were also distant relatives,” she recalled. His early films include Paisa (1957) directed by Prithviraj.
His real name is Sudesh Dhawan. But the actor’s online name keeps changing. In some places he is Sudesh, in others he is Sudesh Kumar and in most places he is Sudesh Kumar. The actor, who initially appeared in roles in low-budget period dramas and spiritual dramas, later came to mainstream attention with his guest appearance as a doctor in Prasad Production’s superhit family drama Chhoti Bahen (1959). He is paired opposite Nanda who plays the lead role.
In the sixties, Sudesh found himself a fixture on the southern social circuit, working with senior directors such as K Shankar (Bharosa, 1963), Vasu Menon (Grahasti, 1963), A Bhimsingh (Khandan, 1965 and Gopi, 1970) and CV Sridhar (Dharti, 1970). Old-timers will remember him for his perfect Mumtaz dance steps twists and turns in the rock song “Aa dance karein, thoda Romance karein”. “Kandan was one of his favorite films,” Jaya said.
One of the more interesting characters appeared in producer-director Vasant Joglekar’s critically and commercially successful Aaj aur Kal (1963), set in the princely states of pre-independence India. Sudesh plays a young Congress leader and son of a humble coachman who tries to attract people to the national movement and becomes attracted to the king’s young daughter (Tanuja).
He is better remembered for producer-director Dhirubhai Desai’s Saranga (1961), in which a prince falls in love with a commoner, with a tragic ending. Two songs from the film, “Saranga teri yaad mein” (singer: Mukesh, lyrics: Bharat Vyas, music: Sardar Malik) and “Haan deewana hoon main” (same trio) became viral hits, ranking at No. 9 and No. 20 on the annual list of the popular countdown show Binaca Geetmala. The title track has more than 2.5 million total views on YouTube, underscoring its timeless appeal. A heartbroken Sudesh walking through a bare grove while counting numbers is part of the unforgettable images of old Bollywood.
With meaningful screen presence gradually dwindling, Sudesh deftly turned to filmmaking in the 1970s. But before that, he assisted Raj Khosla in Do Badan (1966). His first release as a producer was Man Mandir (1970), which featured the unlikely pairing of Sanjeev Kumar and Waheeda Rehman.
Sudesh formed a fruitful director-producer duo with Raghunath Jalani, making two smart and moderately successful offbeat thrillers: Urjan (again with Sanjeev Kumar) and Badart Rishti (with Jitendra, Reena Roy and Rishi Kapoor) and the box-office turkey Jaan Hathali Pae (1987).
In 1982, he married Mumbai-born Jaya Naik nee Dhawan, who modeled for products such as Vicco, Complan and Farex. They were neighbors who first met outside the residence of Sudesh’s close friend and renowned lyricist Rajendra Krishan.
“Even a year ago, he was full of life and energy,” recalls the lyricist’s son, Rajesh Duggal. Jaya said they visited temples in the south in February. “Despite his age, he was very healthy. He never used a cane,” she said.
The funeral took place on Friday at Shivaji Park Crematorium.
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