Guru Dutt's 94th Birth Anniversary: Here Are Lesser Known Facts About The Orson Welles Of Indian Cinema

An Indian filmmaker, producer and actor, who is known for films with a cult following across the world, Guru Dutt was the man behind some of cinema’s greatest, including ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’, ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’ and ‘Chaudhvin Ka Chand’. The film personality, who unfortunately had a tragic life, and death, was, however, born on July 9, 1925, and in a short, but illustrious career, gave India some of its cinematic firsts. On his 94th birth anniversary, we take a look at a few interesting facts about the artiste.

• Guru Dutt never wanted to face the camera and his most famous role in ‘Pyasa’ was originally meant to be essayed by Dilip Kumar who backed out because he thought he was doing something similar in ‘Devdas’.
• Geeta Dutt, Guru Dutt’s wife, denied singing for Waheeda Rehman in ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’. Hence, all of Waheeda’s songs were sung by Asha Bhosle while Geeta Dutt gave voice to Meena Kumari’s character.
• Bhootnath’s role in ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’ was initially supposed to go to Shashi Kapoor but he backed out, thus, the role went to Guru Dutt.
• Guru Dutt launched India’s first cinemascope film ‘Gouri’ with his wife Geeta Dutt as the protagonist but shelved it probably because he had imagined his muse Waheeda Rehman in the film. Years later Waheeda did a film on the same theme as ‘Gouri’, about the rehabilitation of a sex worker, called Darpan.
• Another first by Guru Dutt that the never saw the light of day was 1963 ‘Kaneez’ starring Simi Garewal, which was slated to be India’s first colour film.

• Despite doing/making sensitive films, Guru Dutt was a ruthless professional in life. For example, when S D Burman fell ill during the shoot of ‘Baharein Bhi Ayengi’, he replaced the legendary musician with O P Nayyar in no time. Dev Anand who was shooting guide at the same time, postponed it until Burman recovered.
• Guru Dutt and actress Deepika Padukone, both hail from Karnataka’s Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin community and share a surname. Guru Dutt was born Vasanth Kumar Shivsankar Padukone, but his family changed it to Guru Dutt following a childhood accident.

• Guru Dutt was also related to Kalpana Lajmi who is the daughter of Dutt’s younger sister Lalitha Lajmi. He was also related to Shyam Benegal.
• It was Guru Dutt who introduced the concept of close-up shot in Bollywood which was known as Guru Dutt shot.

• With his cinematography style, visual narrative ability and method of acting, Guru Dutt was also known as Orson Welles of the Indian cinema.
• Guru Dutt spent his childhood in Kolkata. He used to work as a telephone operator at the Lever Brothers factory in Kolkata.