Remembering Vinod Khanna 1946-2017

Born: 6 October 1946, Peshawar, Pakistan
Died: 27 April 2017, Mumbai
He appeared in 141 films between 1968 and 2013.
Khanna acted in lead roles in many super hit films and is best remembered for his performance in films like Mere Apne, Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Imitihaan, Inkaar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Lahu ke Do Rang, Qurbani, Dayavaan and Jurm.
After making his debut in 1968, Khanna first acted in small second lead roles or negative roles. His angry young man role in the super hit movie Mere Apne, his negative role as the main villain in the super hit movie Mera Gaon Mera Desh and his role in the critically acclaimed movie Achanak as the military officer turned fugitive received tremendous applause from both- the film industry and his fans. As a result, Khanna was soon offered the opportunity to play the lead role. The trend of multi-star cast movies were popular in the 1970s and 80s. So Khanna appeared in many movies as the second lead to Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Rajesh Khanna.
In 1982, at the peak of his film career, Khanna temporarily quit the film industry to follow his spiritual guru Osho Rajneesh. After a 5 year hiatus, he returned to the Hindi film industry giving two back to back hit films Insaaf and Satyamev Jayate.
He also played the lead role in the Pakistani film Godfather released in 2007.
In 1974, Khanna received the Filmfare Award as the "Best Supporting Actor" for his role in "Haath ki Safaai".

In 1999, he received the Filmfare "Lifetime Achievement Award".

In 2007, he received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the Zee Cine Awards at Malaysia.
Vinod Khanna has two sons- Rahul Khanna and Akshaye Khanna from his first marriage and one son, Saakshi and a daughter, Shraddha from his second marriage.
Khanna is popularly hailed as one of the three most handsome lead actors ever in Bollywood, along with Dharmendra and Shammi Kapoor.