Bollywood Flashback: Shashi Kapoor’s Near-Death Experience

Film making is not an easy task. A lot of hard-work, time, effort, money and energy goes behind every film before we watch them on the silver screen. There are times when fatal accidents have taken place on the sets of many films. One can never forget the incident related to Nargis where Sunil Dutt’s heroic efforts managed to save her or the massive fire on the sets of The Sword Of Tipu Sultan, where actor-director Sanjay Khan survived with 65% third-degree burns. There are many such near-death experiences related to our film stars and one such experience was of none other than the sweet and charming, Shashi Kapoor.

In the late 70s, director Manmohan Desai was making a multi-starrer film Suhaag starring Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, Parveen Babi, Nirupa Roy, Kader Khan, Ranjeet and Amjad Khan. The film was lavishly shot and took lots of time in its making. Finally, it was time to shoot the climax of the film where Amjad Khan is trying to escape in a helicopter and the film’s heroes Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan had to catch him by hanging below the chopper.

Due to the political scenario of that time, Manmohan Desai failed to get permission from the government for usage of the helicopter. Thus, the makers decided to shoot the finale part of the film in Singapore. Manmohan Desai explained the shot to Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan wherein they were supposed to arrive at the runway on a bike and chase Amjad Khan’s helicopter. After a while, one by one Amitabh and Shashi had to grab a rope hanging below the helicopter. As the helicopter takes off, both Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor were to hang down by grabbing the rod’s placed below the helicopter.

Manmohan Desai wanted his heroes to do the grabbing and hanging part on their own, without any duplicate. The later shots, where the helicopter is flying in the sky would have duplicates, but, for the basic shots on the runway, he needed his heroes. The moment Shashi Kapoor heard this, he refused to shoot due to his past experiences with Manmohan Desai. He reminded Manmohan Desai that while shooting for Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1973), the director wanted him to enter a fire wearing skates and holding a knife in his hand. Even at that time, Shashi refused to hold the knife as he felt it was unsafe and could end up into a massive mishap. Later, in the same scene, Manmohan Desai wanted Shashi Kapoor to break a window glass without using a body double. Once again, Shashi refused to be a part of it and finally the shot was done with a body double. Sadly, the double who did that shot got a big slash on his head and got several stitches. So due to these experiences, Shashi Kapoor was skeptical to do the helicopter hanging scene. Manmohan Desai somehow managed to convince Shashi Kapoor and told him that they will take only one shot and that too, with only a few meters above the ground so that it looks real and heroic. Shashi Kapoor agreed to it as he knew that the climax scenes of Manmohan Desai fared well with the audiences.

The shooting started as planned and once Amitabh and Shashi grabbed the rope and were hanging below the helicopter, the chopper got off the ground level and went about 100 feet above. Initially, it was fine with Shashi but, after a while, his hands started getting sweaty. Shashi Kapoor could not demand for a cut as they were in midair and no one was able to hear him due to the loud sound of the helicopter. Manmohan Desai and his team were watching their heroes through the binoculars, in which everything seemed normal. The helicopter was supposed to take a turn as the scene was to be shot in a certain angle. After the turn, Manmohan Desai’s team were not able to clearly see the actions of Shashi Kapoor through the binoculars. Whereas Shashi was panicking and struggling hard to hold the rod against the wind pressure and body weight. His muscles started to give up and the sweat on his hands was making it impossible for him to hold on anymore. Finally, one of his hands slipped and at that time Shashi Kapoor thought that he will die for sure. He somehow managed to lift his tiring arm and got hold of the rod. But it was becoming more and more difficult for him to hold and at one given point he decided to let it go. His hand was again about to slip and before it could, the helicopter completed its turn and was about to land on the ground. That added the much needed strength in Shashi’s arms and he somehow managed to hang around for a few more minutes. Finally, the helicopter made its landing and both the heroes were assisted with medical help.

Shashi Kapoor was in his tears as he had experienced a near-death situation. When Manmohan Desai came to accolade his heroes, angry Shashi told him that he would not do a single action shot with him ever and further mentioned that would never do a film with him. Shashi Kapoor stormed back to his hotel and made an international call to his wife Jennifer in India, just to tell her that she was lucky to have him alive.

Years passed by, but Shashi Kapoor could not forget this near-death experience and was haunted by those bad memories for a very long time.

Fun Facts –

Shashi Kapoor and Manmohan Desai worked only in two films Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1973) and Suhaag (1979). Both the movies were hit at the box-office.

Manmohan Desai had planned Suhaag (1979) keeping in mind Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan.

Suhaag (1979) was remade in Telugu as Satyam Shivam (1981) starring N.T.Rama Rao, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Sridevi and Rati Agnihotri.

In the year 1967, Manmohan Desai was making Vaada– Starring Shashi Kapoor, Saira Banu and Jeetendra. As per the filmmaker, this movie had one of the finest script and had shot around eight reels. Sadly, due to some financial issues this movie was shelved.

Manmohan Desai and his writers wrote a role for Shashi Kapoor in the film Desh Premee (1982) but later went ahead and finalized on Shatrughan Sinha for that role. Sadly, Shatrughan Sinha was not happy with the length of that role and finally Navin Nischol got the role.

Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan’s Jodi worked in around twelve films plus a film in a guest appearance. Shashi Kapoor also directed Amitabh Bachchan in his magnum opus film Ajooba (1991).

Shashi Kapoor was so busy in the 70’s that his elder brother Raj Kapoor use to call him as a Taxi, who kept shuffling from one studio to another.

Shashi Kapoor’s niece Kanchan (Shammi Kapoor & Geeta Bali’s daughter) is married to Manmohan Desai’s son Ketan Desai.

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