Daya Kishan Sapru (16 March 1916 – 20 October 1979),
was an Indian actor famed for a variety of character roles in
Hindi cinema
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
, particularly villains, judges and aristocrats in crime thrillers and dramas. His most notable performances were in Bollywood productions of between the late 1950s and early 1970s, including ''
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam'', ''
Heer Raanjha'', ''
Pakeezah'', ''
Kala Pani'', ''Dooj Ka Chand'', ''
Tere Mere Sapne'', ''
Humjoli'', ''
Jewel Thief'', and ''
Deewar''.
Born to
Kashmiri Pandit parents in 1916, Sapru made his Bollywood debut in ''Chand'' (1944), starring
Prem Adib
Prem Adib (10 August 1917 – 25 December 1959) was an Indian actor. He was acclaimed as one of the top Bollywood actors of the 1940s, along with the likes of Pahari Sanyal, Ashok Kumar, P. C. Barua and Master Vinayak. Adib is best remembered f ...
, another
Kashmiri Pandit actor. By the early 1970s, Sapru had risen to prominence as a villain in crime thrillers. Although he died in 1979, he continued to appear in several films that were released in the 1980s, including ''
Krodhi
Krodhi () is a 1981 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film was directed by Subhash Ghai and it stars huge cast such as, Dharmendra, Shashi Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Hema Malini, Premnath, Pran in pivotal roles. Kalyanji-Anandji's background sco ...
'' (1981).
His son
Tej Sapru
Tej Sapru (born 5 January 1955) is an Indian actor. He is the son of D. K. Sapru and Hemvati, both of whom were actors in the Hindi film industry. He has appeared in a number of Bollywood films of between the 1980s and 2010s, including '' Gupt'', ...
and younger daughter
Preeti Sapru are actors in Punjabi and Hindi films. His elder daughter
Reema Rakesh Nath is a scriptwriter and director, and her son, actor
Karan Nath, is Sapru's only grandson.
Selected filmography
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sapru
1916 births
1979 deaths
Male actors in Hindi cinema
Male actors from Jammu and Kashmir
20th-century Indian male actors
Kashmiri people