Mithun Chakraborty: From Helen's back-up dancer ‘Rana Rez' to giving the first Rs 100 cr film, he made it in the worst decade of Bollywood

Indian Express

15-06-2025

Almost 40 years ago, in the 1980s, the mainstream Hindi film industry was going through a phase where every film was worse than the previous one, and it was starting to become a parody of itself. The influence of southern remakes was starting to take over mainstream films (much like today) and while producers kept blaming the video cassettes and piracy for their downfall (like they blame streaming platforms now), it was obvious that this era of movies was probably the worst it had ever been. It is obvious that history is repeating itself in the 2020s, but that's a discussion for another time. As the 1980s started, Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna were planning their retirement with their next steps as diverse as politics and sanyas. Dharmendra was settling into the mould of a has-been action star, Jeetendra was making movies with Telugu filmmakers, and almost every other major movie star from the 1970s was starting to settle for much less. Otherwise, how do you explain that a star like Rajesh Khanna chose to star in a film called Souten that looks like a comedy sketch? Much like today, there just wasn't any new actor on the block who could carry the baton of being the next superstar, and even those who were trying to prove their mettle could only score mediocre films, despite them doing well at the box office. Kamal Haasan made his Hindi debut in a film called Ek Duuje Ke Liye and sure, it was a hit, but try watching it now and you will wonder how this man ever became a star. It was this unfortunate decade when Mithun Chakraborty made his way into the movies and found his stardom with a bunch of films that, unfortunately, aren't as memorable as his Dadasaheb Phalke Award will force you to assume.
Those who were not around back in the day were first introduced to Mithun via a reality show called Dance India Dance in the 2000s where he was a 'grandmaster' of dance and praised contestants with his phrase 'Kya baat, kya baat, kya baat' (You can't really translate this but it's closest to saying 'wow'). It is here that the 1990s kids first discovered that Mithun was a dance icon in Bollywood, not because he danced on the show, but because the judges and contestants sang his praises constantly. It was here that the kids who grew up under the influence of Govinda and Hrithik Roshan learnt that there was once a man who danced to the iconic tune of 'I am a Disco Dancer' and started the 'disco' revolution in the 1980s. Dance India Dance did the same thing for Mithun, what Kaun Banega Crorepati did for Amitabh Bachchan, albeit on a smaller scale.
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Years before stardom first came to Mithun with 1982's Disco Dancer, the actor had already proven that he deserved a seat at the table. In 1976, Mithun made his debut with Mrinal Sen's Mrigayaa, and won a National Film Award for the same, but this didn't help him in scoring movies. 'My National Award was treated as an extension of my FTII recognition, and that didn't materialise into work. In fact, I was even prepared to play negative roles because my confidence was shattered by a certain section of people who would discourage me for my looks,' he told Stardust in an interview in 2006.It's like Vicky Kaushal leaving a niche audience awestruck with Masaan, but finding his crowd only after popular films like Sanju and Uri. But even before he landed Mrigayaa, Mithun had a passion for dance, which was quite unheard of in those days, at least for mainstream heroes.
For a short while, he renamed himself Rana Rez and became a backup dancer in Helen's troupe. She was so impressed with his skills that she once gave him a 30-minute slot that left the audience swooning. To be a star, he had to ace at acting, but his dancing skills gave him that extra edge that seemed to be lacking in other heroes in those days.
In 1982, Mithun's fortune changed with the first Rs 100 crore film on Hindi cinema, Disco Dancer. This film changed his career, and continues to be known for its iconic music by Bappi Lahiri. It was one of those films where the audience came in for the dance numbers, and watched it out over and over again because they were enthralled by the new sound of Bappi Lahiri and mesmerised by Mithun's dancing style. It was a dance film, but it was as '80s as it could be. There is a scene in the film where Mithun's Jimmy loses his mother after she is electrocuted by a guitar. It won't fly today, and the cringeworthy parts of it were only accepted because they came with an experience of watching dance videos, an experience that just didn't exist at the time. Forget streaming platforms or YouTube, even television didn't have music videos playing at all times in the early 1980s.
The Disco Dancer era went on for a while as Mithun acted in many films that were clones of this hit. The income was steadily rising, and Mithun even became the highest taxpayer in 1986, but the films didn't really reflect the quality that he had once hoped. The curse of the '80s was still on. He was doing at least a dozen films a year but none of them were hitting the right spot. One can't really blame Mithun for doing over 100 films in this decade for he had seen some tough times in his early days and like anyone who knows the value of money, he knew he had to earn as much as he could as long as the sun was shining.
As the 1980s drew to a close, actors like Govinda, Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapor were starting to assert their dominance, and by the end of the decade, Salman and Aamir had brought in the era of the romantic hero. The short span of Mithun's stardom was starting to vanish and so, he started the smartest business venture done by a actor before Shah Rukh Khan. He moved to Ooty in the 1990s, bought some land, took a loan of Rs 3 crore, put in 4 crore of his own money and built his hotel from the ground up. Ooty had a steady stream of tourists, a lot of south films shot there and Mithun also started shooting for his own films here. Mithun had to move to the hills and his reputation as a B-grade movie star stuck with him, but in exchange he built his group of hotels in the hills. Until the 2000s, the image stuck with him and he could only shake it off after his dancing reality show.
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Mithun was the right candidate to become a superstar had he chanced upon his first hit in any other decade. The 70s would have accepted him as a competitor to Amitabh Bachchan, and the 90s would have seen him as the dancing star that gave Govinda a run for his money. But despite the era, Mithun got his due in the movies, in both Hindi and Bengali. But the industry that now loves to adore him wasted him at a time when the movies looked like they came out of a factory, and Mithun was doing a job that he could have done even without his FTII diploma.
Sampada Sharma has been the Copy Editor in the entertainment section at Indian Express Online since 2017. ... Read More