Rajendra Nath

Rajendra Nath Malhotra (8 June 1931 − 13 February 2008) was an Indian actor and comedian in Hindi and Punjabi films.

Early life and family Rajendra Nath was born on 8 June 1931 in Tikamgarh, which is now in Madhya Pradesh. His family was from the Karimpura locality of Peshawar but settled in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. His father Rai Bahadur Kartar Nath Malhotra was a police officer of high cadre during British Raj whose frequent transfers led to his service tenure across different Indian states. Rajendra Nath studied at Darbar College, Rewa, where Arjun Singh (a Congress politician) and R.P. Agarwal were his classmates. He had also another brother Narendra Nath who also became an actor who usually played some villain's role in the movies. While Bina Rai became his sister-in-law after her marriage to Prem Nath in 1952, Prem Chopra became his brother-in-law after his marriage to his younger sister Uma in 1969. Also Rajendra Nath became particularly close to Shammi Kapoor when they used to go for horse-riding at Rewa after Krishna Malhotra married Raj Kapoor in 1946 and used to stay at her father's home for some point of time. The duo later did several films together.

Rajendra, who was little interested in studies, quit college and landed in Bombay to work in films like his brother. He did some plays at Prithvi theatre namely Deewar, Pathan, Shakuntala and Ahuti and worked there for ten years during which he befriended Shammi Kapoor, Shashi Kapoor and even Shankar-Jaikishan duo who all were yet to make their mark in Hindi Cinema.

Career Apart from acting on plays, Rajendra Nath ocassionally did brief roles in films which were insignificant to the extent that no one would notice his screen presence as such. Besides, he used to live a somewhat carefree life, least bothered about his career. It was only when an annoyed Prem Nath ousted him from home that he started thinking of his career deeply. However, Prem Nath did give Rajendra Nath another house to live (which he used to share with Yash Johar who later became a successful film producer) besides giving him significant roles in films Shagufa in 1953 and Golconda Ka Qaidi in 1954 in which he was the side hero. Both these films were produced by Prem Nath himself under his production banner P. N. Films which starred himself opposite his wife Bina Rai. However, these films flopped. The latter one was also directed by Prem Nath himself; it was also dubbed in English under the title Prisoner of Golconda completed in 1954 but remained unreleased until Prem Nath's younger son Kailash "Monty" Nath released the English version in YouTube in his channel Major Mood Entertainment excluding the songs (which will be in Hindi). Rajendra Nath got recognition in a small comic role in the film Hum Sab Chor Hain in 1956. This recognition was strengthened with his role in Shararat in 1959 and then the same year Sashadhar Mukherjee offered him a comedian's role in Dil Deke Dekho, a film directed by Nasir Hussain, starring Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh. Rajendra Nath along with Asha Parekh were a regular feature in many Nasir Hussain films like Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon, Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai, Baharon Ke Sapne and Pyar Ka Mausam. He also played a villainous role in Hamrahi opposite Shashikala whose character he kills. He was one of the most famous comedians. His best role as comedian was in Mere Sanam and Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon. He also played the role of Hero/Second Lead in Vachan and Teen Bahuraniyan. He played supporting roles in films like Dharkan by Devendra Goel and Jeevan Mrityu by Rajshri Productions. He played a buffoon called Popatlal in Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai, and since then the name became synonymous with Rajendra Nath. He used this name in the famous TV series Hum Paanch.

He then did many films, mostly in comic roles, such as in An Evening in Paris and Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon. One of his most lauded performances was in Manoj Kumar's Purab Aur Paschim though it was not a full-fledged comedy role. He also contributed to Nepal's first movie Maitighar which was shot in Kathmandu, Nepal. His career was badly affected following a car accident in 1969 as a result of which, he had to spend many months in hospital. Then in 1974, he started shooting for his home production The Gate Crasher starring Randhir Kapoor and Neetu Singh in main leads. However, his lack of experience in filmmaking led to him being betrayed by his associates and after falling in a huge debt owing to this, he had to stall the film after ten days of shoot.

He starred in a number of Punjabi films such as Jatt Punjabi and Do Posti. His last film was Laash.

As per the data provided by Surat (Gujarat) based senior film historian Harish Raghuvanshi, Rajendra Nath acted in 9 films of 1950s, 70 in 1960s, 67 in 1970s, 84 in 1980s and 23 in 1990s, thus in total 253 films in his entire acting career. Most of the information above was shared by Rajendra Nath himself to film historian Shishir Krishna Sharma of his column Kya Bhooloon Kya Yaad Karoon in the Hindi weekly paper Sahara Samay during tbe 2000s. He died on 13 February 2008 from cardiac arrest at the age of 76. He is survived by his wife, a son who used to work for Qatar Airlines and a daughter.

Partial Filmography