Prem Chopra

Biography

Prem Chopra (born 23 September 1935) is an Indian actor in Hindi and Punjabi films. He has acted in 380 films over a span of over 60 years. He has a soft-spoken diction despite being a villain in most films.

His 19 films, with him as an antagonist and Rajesh Khanna in the lead role, remain popular with audiences and critics.

Chopra, the third of six children of Ranbir Lal and Rooprani Chopra, a Punjabi Hindu family, was born on 23 September 1935, in Lahore. After the partition of India, his family moved to Shimla, where he was brought up.

He has studied in S.D. Senior Secondary School, Shimla. His father desired for him to be a doctor or an Indian Administrative Services Officer.

Chopra completed his schooling and college in Shimla after his father, who was a government servant, got transferred there. He graduated from Panjab University.

He took part in college dramatics enthusiastically. At his father's insistence, he completed his graduation and then went to Bombay (present-day Mumbai).

Soon after he made his debut film, his mother was diagnosed with mouth cancer and she died, leaving his then nine-year-old sister Anju to be looked after by his father and his four other brothers.

The brothers had given warning to their respective wives that only if their sister is happy, would they be happy and Prem considers his sister to be his first daughter.

Noted writer-director Lekh Tandon brought the proposal of Uma for marriage to Prem. Uma was the younger sister of the siblings Krishna Kapoor (wife of Raj Kapoor), Prem Nath, and Rajendranath.

The couple has three daughters, Rakita, Punita, and Prerna Chopra. Rakita is married to film publicity designer Rahul Nanda, the son of author and screenwriter Gulshan Nanda. Punita owns a preschool called Wind Chimes in Bandra, suburban Mumbai, and is married to singer and television actor Vikas Bhalla.

Prerna is married to Bollywood actor Sharman Joshi. Chopra resides in a duplex apartment in Pali Hill, Bandra in Mumbai.

He became estranged from two of his four brothers in the late 1980s. Chopra had bought a bungalow in 1980 in Delhi, which was jointly owned by him and his father, and his father and one brother used to stay there.

Chopra had gotten his brother a job in Delhi and made him stay at the bungalow. But his father, a day before his death, was made to sign a will favoring one of his brothers, taking away Chopra's rights to the bungalow.

Later, an income tax raid happened in that same house, and his brother said in the raid that Chopra had given them the bungalow, but the house still was in the name of Prem Chopra.

Chopra had two other houses in Bombay as well, which were sold off cheaply by his other brothers without telling him, as they needed the money.

His biography titled Prem Naam Hai Mera, Prem Chopra, written by his daughter Rakita Nanda, was released in April 2014.

Chopra had a good career spanning 50 years and was popular for villain roles in Bollywood.