Kishore Kumar is without doubt a legend as far as Bollywood history is concerned. Born in a Bengali family, Abhas Kumar Ganguly, which was his real name, wore many hats- that of an actor, playback singer, lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenwriter and scriptwriter.
After his elder brother Ashok Kumar became an actor, Abhas Kumar changed his name to Kishore Kumar and started his career as a chorus singer at Bombay Talkies, where his brother worked. Kishore Kumar's first film as an actor was Shikari (1946), in which Ashok Kumar played the lead role. Music director Khemchand Prakash gave Kishore Kumar a chance to sing Marne ki duayen kyon mangu for the film Ziddi (1948). Following this, Kishore Kumar got many other assignments, though he was not very serious about a film career.
Music director S. D. Burman is credited with spotting Kishore Kumar's talent as a singer, and advancing his singing career, when he suggested that Kishore try his hand at singing. Though Kishore did not have any formal training in music, he took Burman's advice to heart and started to develop his own singing style.
There was no looking back after this and over the years, Kishore Kumar sang for many actors such as Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Dev Anand, Shashi Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty, Sanjay Dutt, Sunny Deol, Anil Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, Rakesh Roshan, Dilip Kumar, Pran, Vinod Mehra, Chunkey Pandey, Kumar Gaurav, Govinda and Jackie Shroff.
By mid 80s, Kishore had decided to retire and on 13 October 1987, his brother Ashok's 76th birthday, he passed away following a heart attack in Mumbai at 4:45 pm.
On the day of his birth anniversary, Movie Talkies offers a salute to this Bollywood legend.
