Uttam Kumar was born on 3rd Sept 1926 in Kolkata at the home of his maternal uncle at Ahiritola, while his ancestral house is on Girish Mukherjee Road, Bhowanipore. After his schooling in South Suburban School (Main), he went for higher studies in Goenka College of Commerce and Business Administration, a college affiliated to the University of Calcutta. He could not complete his studies and started working at the Kolkata Port trust as a clerk. During this period, he acted in amateur theatre groups. His prodigious joint family had its own theatre group, the Suhrid Samaj, which staged many amateur shows.
Uttam's first release was Drishtidan (The gift of sight, 1948) directed by Nitin Bose.He later got the contact at M.P Studios for three years. M.P studios produced the film "Basu Paribar" in which he came into prominence, but his breakthrough film was Agni Parikshain 1954 that began the success of the all-time romantic pair of Uttam Kumar - Suchitra Sen, though they had first paired in Sharey Chuattor (1953).The film ran for 65 weeks and established Uttam in the industry.
Commercial cinema in the form of films like Uttam Kumar starrer Basu Paribar (1952) and the iconic Uttam–Suchitra pairing in Sharey Chuattor (1953), did tremendous business. On the background of the mass migration from the then East Pakistan to Calcutta, the Uttam-Suchitra pair gave expression to the yearnings of a new, transformed city.[citation needed]They played out on screen the new desires of a young audience trying to come to terms with industrial modernity and a new form of urban existence.[citation needed] The stylised, black-and-white romanticism of landmark Uttam-Suchitra films of the 1950s like "Agni Pariksha", "Shapmochan",Sagarika (1956), Shilpi (1956), or Harano Sur, Indrani, Sabar Uparey, Surjyo Toron reflected a novel, youthful urban desire to break free from the confines of the feudal joint family and set up a nucleated, private space for the couple in love.
Uttam Kumar was especially adored for his effortless naturalism in front of the camera and a distinctively urbane charisma that broke free from the prototypical Bengali screen hero of the past. He went on to form successful screen pairs with many leading ladies like Suchitra Sen, Supriya Choudhury, Sabitri Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Sharmila Tagore, Anjana Bhaumick, Tanuja Samarth, Aparna Sen and Sumitra Mukherjee, apart from Sandhyarani in the 50s, Arundhati Debi and Mala Sinha in the 60s and Kaberi Bose and Tanuja in the 60s and 70s. He acted in Nayak by Satyajit Ray in which the master-director scripts the rise of a young actor with an ordinary background to a star sought after by one and all. In fact, this film may be considered as a tribute to Uttam Kumar. Often hailed as the one-man industry, Uttam Kumar dominated Bengali cinema for three decades until his death.
“In my heart I know – nothing, not this light, or this radiance – nothing will last. This light might snuff out at any moment and throw me into deeper darkness.”
Uttam Kumar had written these lines in his book Amar Ami before his death. By some strange coincidence, on the day he died (July 24, 1980), the manuscript of Amar Ami went missing, only to be recovered much later and published in the form of a book by Saptarshi Prakashan. The actor, who had been documenting his phenomenal personal and professional journey in this book, spoke his heart out about his life as a star, his struggles, his loneliness and much more.
Uttam Kumar had written these lines in his book Amar Ami before his death. By some strange coincidence, on the day he died (July 24, 1980), the manuscript of Amar Ami went missing, only to be recovered much later and published in the form of a book by Saptarshi Prakashan. The actor, who had been documenting his phenomenal personal and professional journey in this book, spoke his heart out about his life as a star, his struggles, his loneliness and much more.
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