Kishore Kumar

His personal life had always been tumultuous. Throughout his life, he married four times. His first wife was Bengali singer and actress Ruma Guha whom he married in 1950 and divorced in 1958. The couple had one son.

His second marriage was to actress Madhubala with whom he had worked on many films. Their marriage ended with the actress’s death in 1969.

He tied the knot for the third time with Yogeeta Bali in 1976. This marriage was too short lived and ended in divorce in 1978.

He was born as Abhas Kumar Ganguly in a Bengali family. He was the youngest of four siblings. His father, Kunjalal Ganguly was a lawyer and his mother Gouri Devi, too hailed from a wealthy family.

Abhas’s eldest brother, Ashok Kumar became a famous Bollywood actor while Abhas was still young. Later on his another brother Anoop Kumar too joined Ashok. Abhas too became interested in cinema after observing his elder brothers. As a young boy, he was an ardent fan of the singer-actor K. L. Sahgal.

Abhas was interested in music from a young age though he did not have any formal training. He followed his brother Ashok to Bombay and changed his name to Kishore as he embarked on a professional career.

He began his musical career as a chorus singer at Bombay Talkies. To make up for his lack of formal training, he practiced singing for hours and perfected a technique called “yodeling” which would soon become his trademark.

His brother Ashok wanted him to become an actor like him and helped him get some assignments. Kishore performed reluctantly though his sights were now not on an acting career but singing.

He began the 1950s by playing the hero in movies like ‘Andolan’ (1951), ‘Naukri’ (1954) and ‘Musafir’ (1957). Initially music directors like Salil Chowdhury were not willing to give him a chance to sing, but they changed their minds after hearing his melodious voice.

In 1958 he starred in the film ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’ which also had his two brothers in important roles. The female lead was played by the beautiful actress Madhubala.

Considered to be one of the most successful male playback singers of Indian cinema , Kishore Kumar was a class apart. He sang not only in the Hindi language, but also in several other languages including Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Oriya and Urdu.