Birthday Wishes to Prem Chopra Ji

Prem Chopra, the third of six children of Ranbirlal and Rooprani Chopra, a Punjabi Hindu family, was born on 23 September 1935, in Lahore. After the partition of India, his family moved to Shimla. He a completed his schooling and college from Shimla.
In Shimla, Prem Chopra developed an interest in acting as he had begun to take part in many plays in his college days. Despite stiff opposition from his parents, he managed to go to Mumbai to pursue his dream of acting in Bollywood films. To survive in the fast life of Mumbai, he took up a job with The Times of India while trying to gain a foothold in the film industry.
During his stint with the Times of India, he worked in Punjabi films including Sapani and Hindi films such as Woh Kaun Thi?, Shaheed, Main Shaadi Karne Chala and Teesri Manzil.Prem did not consider acting as a full-time profession in the early 1960s, but he kept trying to get roles in films due to his passion for acting. Among his early films he played Sukhdev in Shaheed, one of his rare positive leading roles. Prem had done four movies before Woh Kaun Thi?, a box office hit of 1964, had released. On the sets of Woh Kaun Thi? which had Manoj Kumar as lead hero, Prem met Manoj for the first time. Manoj offered Prem a positive role in Shaheed, for which Manoj was the presenter. During the shooting of Main Shadi Karne Chala someone suggested that he become a villain. He continued working with ToI, when he was already a part of box office hits like Nishan, Sikandar E Azam in 1965 and Sagaai, Mera Saaya in 1966.

After Teesri Manzil and Upkaar, he was flooded with films as a villain. After Upkaar in 1967, he left The Times of India to concentrate solely on acting.
Since 1967, he has been a leading villain in Hindi films and his peak period as main villain was from 1967 to 1994. Unlike other villains, Chopra's on-screen evil didn't rely on gizmos, his characters didn't rely on henchmen to do the dirty work and he never needed wicked names. Some of his famous dialogues from the 1990s include - "Sharafat aur imaandaari ka certificate ye duniya sirf unhe deti hai jinke paas daulat hoti hai" from Aag Ka Gola (1990), "Bhains poonch uthayegi to gaana to nahi gayegi, gobar hi degi" from Aaj Ka Arjun (1990), "Tu Madhuri se thodi kum aur Mandakini se thodi zyada hai" from Aaj Ka Goonda Raj (1992), "Rajneeti ki bhains ke liye daulat ki lathi ki zaroorat hoti hai" from Khiladi (1992), "Kar bhala to ho bhala" from Raja Babu (1994) and "Nanga nahayega kya aur nichodega kya" from Dulhe Raja (1998).
After 1995, he appeared as a villain in very few films. He took up positive character roles from 1996 and started getting more positive roles from 2005. His screen space got reduced in the films after 2005.
Awards
1976 - Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in Do Anjaane
2004 - Legend of Indian Cinema Award at Atlantic City
Amongst other awards won, the Giants honoured him with the "Lifetime Achievement Award". His talent won him the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award in 1998, and he has also been a recipient of the "Lions Club Award", "Ashoka Award", "Ashirwad Award" and the "Punjabi Kala Sangam Award."