Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone, widely known as Guru Dutt was a veteran filmmaker born on July 9, 1925. He is known for giving cinema classic movies of all times.
Apart from being a director, he was also an actor and producer. He was also an inspiration to many.
On the birth anniversary of the ‘Pyaasa’ director, let’s know some important facts about him
- Guru Dutt was born in Bangalore. He passed away at an early age of 39 years on October 10, 1964, in Mumbai. He changed his name from Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone to Guru Dutt. His parents were initially settled in Karwar but later shifted to Bombay and he joined them in 1944.
- He spent his childhood in Bhowanipore a neighborhood in Calcutta and was very fluent in speaking Bengali. His sister’s a famous Indian painter named Lalita Lajmi.
- The director was a telephone operator at the Lever Brothers factory in Calcutta. He quit his job and joined his parents in Bombay. He was helped by an uncle to settle in another job which was a three years contract with the Prabhat Film Company in Pune.
- He worked as an actor and then as a choreographer. As an actor, he did small roles in films like Chand (1944), Lakhrani (1945) in which he acted and assisted director Vishram Bedekar and next year he served as an assistant director and choreographed for the film Hum Ek Hain.
- Guru Dutt made his directorial debut with the film Baazi, inspired by the 1946 Hollywood movie, Gilda. This was the second film of Dev Anand’s production house Navketan Films.
- He went on giving notable films like Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool, Chaudhvin Ka Chand, and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. Kaagaz Ke Phool, which is now a cult classic, was back then considered as a box office disaster.
- Guru Dutt got married in 1953 to renowned playback singer, Geeta Roy Chaudhary, who was later known as Geeta Dutt. The couple had two sons and a daughter.
- Guru’s heavy drinking and smoking habits created a lot of problems in his married life. Another thing that affected his married life was his link up to actress Waheeda Rehman.
- It is said that Guru Dutt’s death may have been suicide or an accidental overdose. However, his son Arun Dutt considers that his father passed away due to an overdose of pills and excessive liquor consumption.
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