A few months back a Hindi film industry icon Vinod Khanna passed away and now the industry lost another icon Shashi Kapoor due to many years of kidney problems. The actor was 79 years old. Shashi Kapoor started working films as a child artist as his family was in the business be it father Prithviraj Kapoor or elder brother Raj Kapoor. The first film as main lead was a big film Dharamputra (1962) made by the legendary B.R. Chopra but this film did not make it to the theaters first as a small film Char Diwari (1961)was first to release. Both Chaar Diwari and Dharamputra failed to do well.

Shashi Kapoor established himself in 1965 with the film Jab Jab Phool Khile but it was and up and down struggle till 1974 and the blockbuster film Chor Machaye Shor. This film put a line of producers outside his house and he enjoyed a strong innings in the 70's with a string of hits and was among the top five to six saleable stars of the time. The biggest blockbusters of his career were Kranti (1981) and Roti Kapada Aur Makaan (1974) which were multistarrers and then there were other blockbuster films with Amitabh Bachchan like Trishul (1978), Suhaag (1979) and Deewaar (1975) among others which were also multistarrers. In time this sort of puts an image of a second lead star which is not true as solo hits were also there with blockbusters Chor Machaye Shor and Fakira (1978) topping the list.

The career as a matinee idol faded as he went in production with films like Junoon (1979), Kalyug (1981), Vijeta (1982)and Utsav (1984) all which suffered huge financial losses as distributors did not back them and it was the actors money being pumped into these films. The last film to feature Shashi Kapoor was Ghar Bazaar (1998)which had him in a guest role and was a delayed film.