‘Humiliated’ Hema Malini was fired from debut film; Raj Kapoor saved the Dream Girl
Hema Malini was just 16 years old when filmmakers from the South started showering her with film offers. At a young age, she had accomplished a lot – performed in front of international dignitaries like Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and was one of the most confident and beautiful classical dancers of the 1960s. So as soon as she hit her teens, producers assumed acting was the obvious next step, even though Hema herself wasn’t sure. Her mother, Jaya Chakravarthy, really wanted Hema to be a movie star so when filmmaker CV Sridhar knocked on their door, they were obliged. It just so happened that he fired her within days, and her eventual debut happened with Raj Kapoor, who turned her into the ‘Dream Girl’. As the veteran actor turns 78 today, turning the pages to the time she took her first steps towards a career in cinema.
CV Sridhar changed Hema’s name to Sujata, ‘humiliated’ her
Filmmaker CV Sridhar, who was a popular name in Tamil Nadu, had decided that he would launch the then 16-year-old Hema but rename her as Sujata. “She is going to be called Sujata from today. Her current name is not good enough,” he said, as per Ram Kamal Mukherjee’s Hema Malini: Beyond the Dream Girl. Sridhar was planning a film where he would launch Hema and a young Jayalalitha. Hema was soon called for a photo shoot where she felt she was “looking thin and ugly as hell” as she was asked to wear a saree. Soon after the shoot began, she was dropped from the film. To make matters worse, Sridhar publicly said that Hema would never be a star. The episode broke the family’s heart, and Hema said they were “humiliated.”
Hema Malini was fired from her debut film. (Photo: Express Archives)
Raj Kapoor declared Hema as the ‘next superstar’
Hema, however, had better things in store for her as shortly after this film fell through, she got the opportunity to star in a Raj Kapoor film. Producer B Ananthaswami was making a film with Raj, and Hema was the chosen one. For her screen test, she was asked to come to RK Studios and was given a few solo scenes. Raj was shooting the scenes with filmmaker K Asif in attendance. Hema described Raj “as a prince” as she was awestruck by the actor-filmmaker. Unlike Sridhar, he made the experience quite comfortable and Hema didn’t even notice where the camera was placed.
As she waited “breathlessly for a response” from Raj after her take, she heard him say, “This girl will be the next superstar of Indian cinema.” And this compliment filled Hema with the kind of confidence that she needed. She was hired for her debut film, Sapno Ka Saudagar.
Raj Kapoor with Hema Malini in Sapno Ka Saudagar. (Photo: Express Archives)
During the promotions of the film, Hema was promoted as ‘Raj Kapoor’s Dream Girl’ but one could obviously not overlook the evident age-gap between the two. She was 16 and Raj was 44, and they were playing romantic partners. The makers decided to put this on the poster, and Hema found it “funny.”
“A few of the posters were really funny. They had things like ‘forty-four-year-old Raj Kapoor in love with sixteen-year-old Hema Malini’ written on them. I was enjoying the entire publicity gimmick,” she said.
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The Dream Girl label stuck and Hema was the next big star on the block. Even before the release of her debut film, Hema had signed five more films.
The rocky start in the movies had now turned into a red carpet for her and Hema continued to work in the movies for decades. In the last few years, she has stepped away from the movies for her political career but she continues to perform at dance recitals across the country.
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