Rishi Kapoor: His life and Bollywood career in pictures

Rishi Kapoor, who died in Mumbai on April 30 after his prolonged battle with cancer, was 67 and is survived by his actress wife Neetu Singh and actor son Ranbir Kapoor and daughter Riddhima Kapoor Sahani.

Kapoor belonged to what is often called the ‘First Family’ of Bollywood with four generations of actors in the family, including grandfather Prithviraj Kapoor, father Raj Kapoor and son Ranbir.

He was born into Bollywood’s first acting family — The Kapoors — and was surrounded by a family of acting icons. He made his acting debut as a child actor in the seminal movie ‘Mera Naam Joker’ (1970), directed by and starring his father Raj Kapoor in the lead role, for which he also received an Indian National Award.

However, his first role as a lead actor was opposite Dimple Kapadia in 1973, when the duo starred in 'Bobby'. Rishi bagged the Filmfare Best Actor trophy for his role in the film.

His films such as ‘Chandni’ (1989) with Sridevi and ‘Kabhi Kabhie’ (1976) with his wife Neetu Singh remain some of Bollywood’s most adored romances.

Rishi starred in more than 50 films between 1973 and 2000, out of which 40 flopped, with the notable ones being 'Damini' (Lightning), 'Bol Radha Bol' and 'Gurudev'.

He turned to direction in 1999 with 'Aa Ab Laut Chalen', starring Rajesh Khanna, Aishwarya Rai and Akshaye Khanna in the lead roles.

He took a brief sabbatical to re-discover his acting mojo and came back with a bang in movies including ‘Agneepath’ in 2012 and and ‘D-Day’ in 2013.

His autobiography ‘Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored’, released in 2017, was aptly titled. He openly spoke about his heroines and scandals during his acting career. The memoir was a no-holds-barred account of his rich life.

Over the years, his Twitter account was ablaze with funny and politically-incorrect anecdotes. It was clear that he handled his own social media tweets and did not rely on managers to ghost-tweet for him. He enjoyed that platform so much that he was the kind of social media user who used to call out airlines and hotels if they weren’t up to the mark.

Rishi was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and went to New York City for treatment. After a treatment that lasted more than a year, the actor returned to India and was to star with Deepika Padukone in the Bollywood remake of ‘The Intern’.

There were rumours as well that his son Ranbir Kapoor was set to marry his girlfriend Alia Bhatt by the end of this year. - With inputs from Bindu Rai, Entertainment Editor