Remembering Prithviraj Kapoor On His 117th Birth Anniversary

Prithviraj Kapoor performed in limited movies but every performance he gave, spoke volumes about the gravitas of his personality. He was born on November 3, 1906 at Samundri near the town of Lyallpur (now known as Faisalabad in Pakistan) to a middle-class family of Punjabi Khatri origin. He could speak Punjabi, Hindi and Hindko.

 He is still remembered for his role as Akbar in the 1960 film, Mughal-e-Azam. 

 Prithviraj Kapoor began his career as a theatre actor in Peshawar (now Pakistan).

The famous Prithvi Theatre was founded by Prithviraj Kapoor in 1944. It was a traveling company back then that put up plays in various parts of the country.  

In 1954, Kapoor was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, and in 1969, the Padma Bhushan by the government of India. The actor remained Nominated Rajya Sabha Member for eight years. After his death in 1972, the actor was posthumously awarded the Dadasahed Phalke Award for the year 1971. For the unversed, Kapoor was the third recipient of that award, the highest accolade in Indian cinema.