Bhubaneswar: Two big events had taken a toll on Amitabh Bachchan’s tryst with the films in early 80’s – the near-fatal accident on the sets of Coolie and the grand political debut as a Congress MP from Allahabad (Prayagraj).

While the life threatening accident on the sets of the Coolie had compelled Amitabh Bachchan to shelve as  many as 7 films, his newly donned MP role was responsible for shelving of nearly a couple of films. Amitabh Bachchan had also become very choosy post Silsila.

In the backdrop of the so-called steamy affair with Rekha with potential of threatening the marital relationship with Jaya Bhaduri and rocking the Bachchan family, Big B become touchy in signing films wit Rekha as a lead heroine.

A host of reasons saw a big drop in Amitabh Bachchan films till the year 1986. And stars of Amitabh Bachchan dimmed from 1988 onwards with Ganga Jamuna Saraswati. In a span of 5 years, Amitabh Bachchan shed the angry young man on-screen role to take up character role befitting his age.

WHEN TOP HEROINES DECLINE TO ACT WITH BIG B?

It was the years of 1983-86, Amitabh Bachchan still had the halo of mega superstar. Amitabh’s blue-eyed directors Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai were producing marvel films designed for Bachchan only.

Ace showman Manmohan Desai had a concept for Amitabh Bachchan. Inspired by the phantom comics, Desai planned to helm a movie called MARD. His wrote a script with Amitabh as lead hero and two heroines. The film took time to kick off for the Coolie and MP debut. Manmohan Desai approached Hema Malini, Reena Roy, Parveen Babi. But all them declined to act in the film for different, different reasons.

• Parveen had left the country.
• Zeenat was about to marriage vows.
• Raakhee had graduated to mother roles.
• Hema declined for weak content based role.
• Manmohan Desai approached Reena Roy who had never been an Amitabh heroine until then except for a non romantic role in Naseeb.
• However Reena was getting married to Mohsin and had announced her retirement.

At that point of time, Desai scrapped the role and increased Amrita Singh's role. And Desai released the film on Diwali Day on November 8, 1985. The film completed 39 years.

The inspiration for Amitabh's character came from the Phantom comics. Phantom had a horse and dog like Amitabh's character in Mard.

FILM TRIVIA

• The film gave two blockbuster dialogues that juxtaposed the word “Dard” (Pain) to describe masculinity (MARD) 
• “Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota”
• “Jiske seene mein doosro ke liye dard hota hai ... asal mein wahi mard hota hai”
• The mirror scene in which Amitabh fools a drunk Prem Chopra was copied from a similar scene in the movie "Kohinoor" featuring Dilip Kumar and Jeevan.
• The "Kohinoor" scene wasn't original either. It was copied from a scene from "I Love Lucy" (starring Harpo Marx) ….
• …..Which itself was a tribute to the original scene from the Marx Brothers' movie "Duck Soup".
• Mithun's first wife Helena Luke played the role of Lady Helena
• Manmohan Desai paid 50 000 rupees for Brownie the dog as fees
• During the height of war between Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra,
• Manmohan Desai made the comment "Only a sharaabi can make a film like Sharaabi, while a Mard can only make a movie like Mard".
•  Not to be out done, Mehra responded "Only a Coolie could stoop so low and make a comment like that.”
• Top grossing movie of 1985.
• 3rd highest grossing movie of 1980s to early 90s.
• Longest running (platinum Jubilee) Indian Movie of al time in Egypt and Middle East.

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