Vinod Khanna Birthday special: 5 lesser known facts about the most handsome dacoit of Bollywood

Bollywood is home to several legends and one of them is Vinod Khanna who is celebrating his 70th birthday today. The veteran actor is quite known for his indomitable charisma on the silver screen and is also considered as one of the most handsome actors in the industry. The actor has been a part of 141 movies in his career of around 45 years and has tried his hands on a variety of roles. We have seen him playing a quintessential police officer, to a lover boy and even a pretty handsome dacoit. Though the legendary actor has retired from his career and is an active politician now, but even after decades, every time we see Vinod Khanna on the screen, we do skip a heartbeat as watching him flaunt his spectacular acting skills is surely a treat to the eyes. As Vinod Khanna, turns a year older today, here are some of the lesser known facts about the flamboyant actor:

Vinod Khanna, who was a commerce student at Mumbai's Sydenham College, has no link with the showbiz. His father ran a family business of textiles. He made his Bollywood debut with a negative role in Sunil Dutt's 1968 release ‘Man Ka Meet’, which was made to launch Sunil’s brother. However, instead of Som Dutt, it was Khanna who swept away all the limelight and became one of the most sought actors for villainous roles.

After doing plenty of negative roles in movies like ‘Purab Paschim’, ‘Sacha Jhutha’, ‘Aan Milo Sajna’ etc, his first break as a hero came with 1977 release ‘Parvarish’ also starring Amitabh Bachchan. The movie won several accolades and gave Vinod Khanna his share of stardom.

His first movie as a solo lead actor came in 1971 titled ‘Hum Tum Aur Woh’. Interestingly, Vinod Khanna was the first villain, after 1940s actor Ishwarlal, to turn into a successful hero. Since then there has been no looking back for him. He was featured in Gulzar’s much acclaimed movie ‘Achanak’ which was released in 1973 and won rave reviews for his performance.

Vinod Khanna shared perfect on-screen timing with megastar Amitabh Bachchan. The two have given several hits together like Amar Akbar Anthony in 1977, Parvarish in 1977 and Muqaddar Ka Sikander in 1978.

The legendary actor announced his retirement from Bollywood at the peak of his career. His decision did shock everyone, but Vinod Khanna chose to follow Osho. However, the actor made his comeback in Bollywood in late 80s and gave movies like ‘Insaaf’, ‘Chaandni’, ‘Dayavaan’, ‘Jurm’ etc.