- Anil Kapoor and Boney Kapoor come from a family that migrated from Peshawar in 1947
- Surinder Kapoor started as an assistant director on Mughal-E-Azam after moving to Mumbai
- Anil Kapoor began his career as a background dancer and casting director in the late 1970s
Anil Kapoor and Boney Kapoor are considered Bollywood royalty today. The producer-actor sibling duo has given us iconic blockbusters such as Mr. India (1987), Pukar (2000), No Entry (2005), and Woh Saat Din (1983), which propelled Anil Kapoor forward and put him in the spotlight as a leading man.
But what we see now is a journey that went through struggling times, financial crises and a family that worked its way through to reach the top and bask in it.
From Raj Kapoor's Outhouse To A Single-Room Chawl
It was as if Anil Kapoor was destined for cinema even before he was born. One would believe this when tracing back how his family migrated from Peshawar, Pakistan, during the 1947 Partition.
Surinder Kapoor, the father of producer Boney Kapoor and actor Anil Kapoor, came to India in 1950 and reached out to his cousin, the great Prithviraj Kapoor, for work.
Surinder Kapoor had once told Rediff, "I came to Mumbai in 1950. I was 27 years old then. I am from Peshawar. When I came to Mumbai, I didn't think I would join films. But Prithviraj was very nice. As soon as I came to Mumbai by Frontier Mail, he took me to K Asif and got me a job as an assistant director on the sets of Mughal-E-Azam."
In a city like Mumbai, Surinder Kapoor, along with his wife, got a little space to reside in Raj Kapoor's outhouse, which was just above a garage meant to be used by the driver. Later, they moved to Tilak Nagar, into a modest one-room chawl.
Boney Kapoor had mentioned earlier how all the Kapoor siblings, including Anil Kapoor and him, were born after they moved to the kholi. Times were dire. In the mid-1970s, the Kapoor family was hit with a debt of Rs 22 lakh.
The Many Characters Of Anil Kapoor Before Stardom Hit
And this is when Boney Kapoor saved their production house with Hum Paanch, and in came Anil Kapoor, who did a horde of on-set jobs and was also a background dancer before Woh Saat Din took off and he entered the profession as a full-time actor.
Anil Kapoor had once told IANS, "Not many people know that I started my career as a background dancer in 1979-80. I completed my acting course but I wasn't able to get any work, so there was a show which was going abroad. In that show, there was Zarina Wahab ji, Padmini Kapila, Hemant Kumar saab and Nutan ji. When they were ready to go at that time, they needed some background dancers, so I went there as a background dancer and I think I used to get 15 pounds for one show at that time."
Anil Kapoor once spoke about the 'odd jobs' he did right from the time he was a teenager. It was a decision he took when his father fell sick.
Anil Kapoor had told Bollywood Bubble, as quoted by Hindustan Times, "We came to know he (father) had heart issues. In those days, heart issues were a very big thing. That was kind of a turning point. I said I have to now start working and let my dad chill. I was pretty young-17-18 years old."
He continued, "I wouldn't call them odd jobs because I loved doing them, like waking up the actors, picking them up, fetching them from the airport, dropping them to the location, looking after them, getting them the right snacks and then the tea breaks. So, all these kinds of odd jobs I did."
"Then, of course, I was upgraded to doing a bit of shopping for hardware for the shoot, and then scouting for locations, fixing and negotiating the prices for the locations. Then I was upgraded to the casting director. I was casting director for Hum Paanch; that's the first time my name appeared in the titles, where I was mentioned as the casting director. After that, I did my course in acting. I was doing bit roles from 1977 to 1982. I did Telugu films and I did Kannada films, and then, of course, Woh Saat Din happened," added Anil Kapoor.
Interestingly, Anil Kapoor's first income was from a Doordarshan gig, where he earned Rs 250.
At Wheel of Fortune, Anil Kapoor had said, "And there's an anecdote I would like to share. My first earnings were in 1976. It was from Doordarshan. There was a Doordarshan studio in Worli, and I performed there on television, for which I was paid INR 250. And from television, you could say I got that recognition, seeing myself on screen. My parents and friends saw me on the small screen."
From that to an empire worth Rs 330 crore? It is worth applauding.
Anil Kapoor-A Star Who Continues To Rule
And then eventually came his peak era, which spanned from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. His top-tier stardom today has a trail of unimaginable blockbusters behind it, which rewrote the idea of a commercial hero with his contagious energy.
Mr. India (1987), Tezaab (1988), Ram Lakhan (1989), Parinda (1989), Beta (1992), 1942: A Love Story (1994) and Laadla (1994) are just a few examples of how his trajectory kept speeding up, establishing Anil Kapoor as one of the biggest superstars the '90s saw and the current generation continues to cherish.
At 69, according to the Financial Express, Anil Kapoor's net worth is a whopping Rs 330 crore.
He continues to move along with the generations, with impressive work now on OTT and in theatres.
According to multiple reports, as stated by the Financial Express, the actor charges between Rs 2 crore and Rs 7 crore, depending on the scale of the project.
As per GQ, other than his plush Juhu bungalow in Mumbai, Anil Kapoor has sprawling properties in central London, San Francisco and Dubai.
He also owns a fleet of luxurious cars, such as a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, a Mercedes-Maybach, a Land Rover Range Rover Sport and an Audi A8 L, to name a few.
The actor has been a part of high-paid campaigns such as Spotify, CRED and Malabar Gold and, as per the Financial Express, earns Rs 2 crore to Rs 3 crore per brand deal.
Hence, it has indeed been quite a journey for Anil Kapoor. His story of riches is applaud-worthy, especially given the body of work that has transcended time and generations, with him still very much in tune with them.
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