Mahanayak’s 43rd Death Anniv Today

Uttam Kumar, a renowned Bengali cinema actor, passed away 43 years ago today. In 1980, on this day, he passed away.  

Various socio-cultural organizations in Kolkata and Bangladesh have organized a variety of programs on the occasion.

This evening at Uttam Mancha, the Kolkata-based Uttam Kumar Memorial Cultural Committee will host an event called "Uttam Smaran Sandhya" as a musical remembrance of the actor. 

The performance will include well-known vocalists including Indranil Sen, Rupankar Bagchi, Lopamudra Mitra, Sreeradha Bandyopadhyay, Manomoy Bhattacharya, and Srikanta Acharya. 

Born in Kolkata on September 3, 1926, Uttam Kumar was an Indian film actor who predominantly worked in Bengali cinema. Considered as the most popular film star of Bengali cinema, popularly known as Mahanayak, Kumar had a large fan following, mainly in West Bengal and Bangladesh.

His first release was ‘Drishtidan’, directed by Nitin Bose. He also worked in an earlier unreleased film titled ‘Mayador’. Then he acted in about four to five flims, all of which were flops. He dubbed as the ‘Flop Master General’. When he used to enter the studio, people would laugh at him and pass comments like ‘Here comes the new Durgadas....Meet the new Chabbi Biswas...’. 

Even considering working at Calcutta Ports instead of ever returning to the movie industry, Uttam Kumar. However, his wife Gouri Chatterjee advised him against working since he doesn't have the necessary passion. Later, he was given a three-year agreement with MP Studios. He first gained notoriety in the studio-produced movie "Basu Paribar," but his big break came with the 1954 film "Agni Pariksha."

Although Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen had previously partnered up in "Sarey Chuattor," the movie marked the beginning of their legendary love partnership's triumph. It made Uttam well-known in the field and ran for a record-breaking 15 weeks.

Apart from Bengali, Uttam Kumar also acted in some Hindi films such as ‘Chhoti Si Mulaqat’, ‘Amanush’, ‘Anand Ashram’, ‘Dooriyaan’, ‘Bandie’ and ‘Kitaab’. But his towering contribution was to Bengali cinema and the Bengali film industry on the whole. From 1947 to 1980, both in Bengali and Hindi, Uttam Kumar acted in 202 films. Of them, 39 were blockbusters, 57 were super hits, 57 made profits above the average and the rest flopped.

Uttam Kumar was a recipient of many awards over his lifetime, including Indian National Film Award for Best Actor.