Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan (born 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for movies like Deewar and Zanjeer, and was dubbed India's first "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Bollywood, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades. Bachchan is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. So total was his dominance of the movie scene in the 1970s and 1980s that the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry". Bachchan has won many major awards in his career, including three National Film Awards as Best Actor (a record he shares with Kamal Hassan and Mammootty), a number of awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies and fourteen Filmfare Awards. He is the most-nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 39 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He also had a stint in politics in the 1980s. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984 and the Padma Bhushan in 2001 for his contributions towards the arts. Bachchan made his Hollywood debut in 2013 with The Great Gatsby, in which he played a non-Indian Jewish character, Meyer Wolfsheim. EARLY & PERSONAL LIFE: Bachchan was born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, in north central India. His father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was a Hindi poet, and his mother, Teji Bachchan, was a Punjabi Sikh from Faisalabad (now in Pakistan). Bachchan was initially named Inquilaab, inspired from the phrase made famous during the Indian independence struggle, Inquilab Zindabad, which means "long live revolution". However, at the suggestion of fellow poet Sumitranandan Pant, Harivansh Rai changed the name to Amitabh which means, "the light that will never die." Though his surname was Shrivastava, his father had adopted the pen-name Bachchan (meaning "child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all his works. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films, and, for all public purposes, it has become the surname of all members of his family. Bachchan's father died in 2003 and his mother in 2007. Bachchan is an alumnus of Sherwood College, Nainital and later attended Kirori Mal College, Delhi University. He has a younger brother, Ajitabh. His mother had a keen interest in theatre and had been offered a role in a film, but preferred her domestic duties. She had some degree of influence in Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should take the centre stage. Bachchan is married to actress Jaya Bhaduri. The couple have two children, Shweta Nanda (wife of businessman Nikhil Nanda) and Abhishek Bachchan (actor and husband of actress Aishwarya Rai). IMAGE SOURCE: "GOOGLE SEARCH" INFORMATION SOURCE: "WIKIPEDIA" LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabh_Bachchan

• published: 22 Sep 2014
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