Manmohan Desai

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Manmohan Desai (born in Valsad,Gujarat on 26 Feb 1936 - Died 1 March 1994) was a renowned producer and director of Indian movies.

1 Background
2 Career
3 Personal
4 Filmography
5 External links

[edit] Background

His father, Kikubhai Desai[1], was associated with the Hindi Film Industry having had directed a film in the 1930s . His younger brother, Subhash Desai, turned producer in the 1950's [2] and gave Manmohan his big break with the Hindi film Chhalia (1960). Subhash later went on to produce Bluffmaster, Dharamveer, Amar Akbar Anthony and Desh Premee with Manmohan as the director.

[edit] Career

Manmohan Desai was known for his formulaic films which catered to the taste of the Indian masses and through which he had great success. His movies defined a new genre called the Masala films. He had a string of hits with Amitabh Bachchan in the 70s and early 80s which helped cement Bachchan's status as a superstar of Indian Cinema. He collaborated with Amitabh on Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish, Suhaag, Naseeb, Desh Premee, Coolie, Mard and Ganga Jamuna Saraswati out of which all but the last one were box office successes. He was one of the directors who had a special working relationship with Amitabh Bachchan, the others being Yash Chopra, Prakash Mehra, Ramesh Sippy, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Of these, only Yash Chopra went on to make hits beyond the 1980s.

Apart from Bachchan, Manmohan Desai has also worked with other Hindi film superstars like Raj Kapoor in the 1960 film Chhalia , Rajesh Khanna in Sachaa Jhutha (1970), Dharmendra in Dharam Veer (1977) and Randhir Kapoor in Raampur Ka Lakshman (1972).

1977 was an exceptional year for him. Four of his films released that year were huge hits. These were Parvarish, Amar Akbar Anthony, Chacha Bhatija and Dharam Veer. The first two were with Amitabh, and the latter two were with Dharmendra.

Out of the 20 films that Manmohan Desai directed in his career span of 29 years (1960-1989), as many as 13 films were stupendous hits. His success ratio was 65 per cent, in an industry where flops abound. It seemed that Desai had his finger pressed unerringly on the pulse of the audience.

Towards the end of his career, Manmohan Desai had a string of box office failures as his previously successful formula's failed to find an audience and his films reeked of self parody. His swansong Ganga Jamuna Saraswati and his son Ketan Desai's directorial ventures Allah Rakha and Toofan were failures at the box office.

His earlier films mostly had Laxmikant Pyarelal as the music composers. In the 80s he began to use Anu Malik to compose for his films.

[edit] Personal

Manmohan Desai is of Gujarati ancestry. His first wife was Jeevanprabha Desai. After she passed away, he was engaged to actress Nanda in 1992 until the time of his death in 1994. He has one son Ketan Desai from his first marriage who is still involved in the film industry. He is married to Kanchan Kapoor, daughter of Shammi Kapoor and Geeta Bali. On 1 March, 1994, an ailing Manmohan Desai committed suicide at his home on Grant Road. Very little has been known about his death and its reasons.