Remembering Mahanayak: The leading light of Bengali cinema on his 42nd death anniversary
Throughout his career, Uttam Kumar remained a commercial as well as a critical success and is still considered an Indian cultural icon. With a career spanning over decades, Uttam Kumar did around 200 films starting with 1948’s film Drishtidan. One of Mahanayak’s most applauded films remains Satyajit Ray’s Nayak in 1966. It is widely accepted that Satyajit Ray wrote the script for this film keeping Uttam Kumar in mind. The sense of restlessness and anxiety depicted in the movie closely resembles that of Uttam Kumar’s life, about his superstardom and how he was always worrying about it ending. Years later Satyajit Ray did confess that had Uttam Kumar rejected the script he would have discarded the entire project. After the epic success of Drishtidan in 1966, Uttam Kumar did another film with Satyajit Ray named Chiriyakhana in 1967. Mahanayak was one of the Indian artists who liked to explore his boundaries, and indeed he did.
Uttam Kumar (Mahanayak) romanced quite a few Bengali beauties on screen, his pairing with actress Suchitra Sen has always been admired and adorned on screen more than others. So much so that they together constitute the evergreen and romantic on-screen couple of Bengali Cinema till date. Mahanayak and Suchitra Sen duo together gave romantic hits like Agni Pariksha, Shipli, Pathe Holo Deri, Harano Sur, Chaowa Paowa, Bipasha, Jiwan Trishna, Sagrika, Trijama, Indrani, Surjyo Toron, Ekti Raat, Grihadaha, Kamallata, Har Mana Har, Alo Amar Alo amongst others.
Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen were the source of star-power and charisma of Bengali cinema’s black and white era. The 'jodi' was regarded as the champion of romance and eternal love. Both passion and pathos defined the pair’s cinematic tryst. "Ei poth jodi na sesh hoy" starring the 'evergreen' duo Uttam-Suchitra which was released in 1961. It is originally a super hit Bengali duet film song of Hemanta Mukherjee & Sandhya Mukherjee on happy romantic mood. Lyricist of this song is Gauriprasanna Mazumder and Hemanta Mukherjee is the music director who had composed this super hit song for the Bengali Film "Saptapadi". There are certain songs that continue to be listened to with the same enthusiasm for generations, decades after decades. One such song is this song.
Uttam Kumar received six B.F.J.A award for Best Actor, in 1955 he earned recognition from the Government of India for Harano Sur, and in 1968 he won the National Film Award for Best Actor for Chiriyakhana and Antony Firingee in the 15th National Film Award where he was the first actor to get that. The very same year when actress Nargis got the best actress award for “Raat Aur Din”. Not only this, Mahanayak left a huge legacy behind. The Tollygunge metro station in Kolkata was renamed the Mahanayak Uttam Kumar Metro Station in his honour. There is also a theatre named after him in Kolkata. And the Indian post released a post stamp featuring Uttam Kumar as a tribute to his legacy that continues even today. After seeing Kumar in "Nayak", actress Elizabeth Taylor was impressed with his performance and wanted to work and meet with him. He worked with Ray the following year in Chiriyakhana in 1967. On his performance in Nayak Forbes India was including him in "List Of 25 greatest acting performance of Indian Cinema".
In his personal life, Uttam Kumar was married to Gauri Chatterjee until he left his residence in 1963 to live with Supriya Devi, where he lived for the next seventeen years of his life until his death. While filming the movie Ogo Bodhu Shundori in 1980, Mahanayak suffered a stroke and was admitted to the hospital where the doctors tried hard to save him for the next 16 hours. Sadly, that night on the 24th of July 1980, at the age of 53, Uttam Kumar died. After the film Agnipariksha 1954, he became one of the most successful actors in Bengali cinema until his death. Kumar was compared by many other actors in the world. Some of greatest actors and actresses such as Elizabeth Taylor, Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala, Dharmendra, Rajesh Khanna, Shammi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan have expressed their admiration to him.