The 'Disco Dancer' turns 70!

During the Amitabh Bachchan era, when he was the one-man industry in the 1970s and early 1980s, the popular comment made by fellow actor and senior artiste Jeetendra was true to its last word: ' Amitabh is the number one to ten in the film industry. All of us come afterwards'.

It is in this period that Mithun Chakraborty, born on June 16, 1950, and an actor, tall, dark, unconventionally good-looking launched by Mrinal Sen in a National Award-winning film 'Mrigaaya' in 1976 made his presence felt.

After a few insignificant films, in one of which he was seen with Amitabh himself ( 'Do Anjaane' in 1976), he hit the bull's eye with a southern remake ' 'Mera Rakshak' in 1978. So much so Bachchan declined in the 1980s, along with a host of new heroes from Sanjay Dutt to Aamir Khan, Mithun also had his time under the sun with more than 100 releases, many of them major hits. His biggest hit was 'Disco Dancer' in this decade.

The later phase, which includes the last two decades saw him emerge as a Bengali hero, a reality show judge and a brand ambassador apart from being a politician with Trinamool Congress, from where he resigned in 2016.