Remembering Dilip Kumar: Lesser known facts about the Bollywood legend

Dilip Kumar was born Muhammad Yusuf Khan.  He was born on 11 December 1922 at his family home in the Qissa Khawani Peshawar, British India, now Pakistan. He was one of the twelve children of Lala Ghulam Sarwar Khan and his wife Ayesha Begum.

He changed his name to Dilip Kumar when he made his debut in films. 
 

After having an argument with his father, young Dilip run away from his house in 1940. He went to Pune, India where he set up a sandwich stall at Pune's Army Club in 1943, with the help of a Parsi café owner.

Before trying his luck as an actor, Dilip Kumar worked as a script-writer in 1942 in Bombay Talkies.  Back then, he had proficiency in the Urdu language and was paid a hefty amount of Rs 1,250 per month as his salary, which was a huge amount in 1940's.
 

The icon will always be an icon! Dilip Kumar is the only actor who played a triple role in a movie. In the 1967 movie 'Ram Aur Shyam', Kumar played the dual role of twins separated at birth and also played the role of their father. 
 

Kumar is known as the first superstar of Bollywood. He started his film career in 1944 with his first film 'Jwar Bhata', which went unnoticed. Later, everything turned differently and he went on to earn success in the 1950s playing leading roles in several box office hits

Following many blockbuster hits, Kumar became the first actor to charge ₹1 lakh per film.
 

Kumar always wanted to establish a business in Mumbai to contribute to the household and help his father. But life had other plans for him.

During his struggling days. at the Churchgate Station in Mumbai, the actor met Dr Masani, who introduced him to actress Devika Rani, then owner of the renowned film studio, Bombay Talkies. 

In his autobiography 'The Substance and the Shadow', he recalled, "I had no clue what acting in front of a camera was. It was something to be studied, learned, and practised." 

Did you know, Kumar had an offer to build his career in international cinema, but he refused. Kumar turned down the chance to play Sherif Ali in David Lean's 1962 classic 'Lawrence of Arabia'.
 

A talented man, indeed! Not in one, two or three, Dilip Kumar was fluent in 12 languages, including Urdu, Hindi, Hindko (his first language), Punjabi, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Marathi, English, Bengali, Gujarati, Pashto, and Persian.
 

Dilip Kumar reportedly suffered from depression in the 1950s because of the intense role he was playing in his films back then for which he was labelled as the 'tragedy king'.