He would have been 78 today had he lived longer. Actor Vinod Mehra who died at 45 on October 30, was never an active advocate of his own talent. You would never hear this quiet polite affable actor talking about his own performances, let alone his turbulent personal life.
Unlucky in love and marriage, he married twice before settling down to peaceful matrimony with Kiran Mehra. They had two years and two children together before he passed away suddenly in 1990.
Sadly Vinod’s personal life made bigger headlines than his quiet assured performance in a never-ending stream of films from 1955 when he made his debut as a child artiste. Vinod did eight films as a child. His debut as a leading man in Ek Thi Reeta was unremarkable. In an era when actors shouted to be heard, Vinod was the m ute performer. His performances never screamed for attention.
He never felt threatened doing heroine-centric films. Right from his debut in Ek Thi Rita (where Tanuja played the title role) women dominated Vinod’s career.Moushumi Chatterjee and Vinod did a slew of films like Shakti Samanta’s Anurag, Basu Chatterjee Uss Paar, Mazaaq, Raftaar, Do Jhooth and Sabse Bada Rupaiya. Many of these were produced by Moushumi’s husband Jayant Mukherjee.
Such was the Moushumi-Vinod camaraderie that they were rumoured to be a real-life pair. Moushumi stoutly denies this rumour, arguing that Vinod Mehra was more her husband’s friend than hers. They spent a lot of time together on and off sets. Hence, the wagging tongues. Vinod was an easygoing hassle-free actor and a good friend to the film industry. His co-stars remember him with much affection. Hema Malini who did one of her most important film Lal Patthar with Vinod remembers him as “polite, gentle and very chivalrous.”
“He was always there for all his friends. But I wonder if anyone was there for him, ”Moushumi wonders.
Vinod was a very emotional man who lost his heart easily. His relationship with Rekha was the talk of the town in the early 1970s when they did Elaan and Ghar together. They were said to have married secretly. But the wedding was never confirmed by either of them.
Sadly, the women in Vinod’s life outraced his achievements as an actor. In a barrage of films in the 1970s and 80s Vinod Mehra was the quiet achiever, letting his performances counter-dominate the film. In the three Amitabh Bachchan starrers of the 1980s Khuddar, Jurmana and Bemisal, Vinod counter-balanced the overweening mass-oriented central performance.
For Vinod, it was okay to be overshadowed. He was not afraid of being in the shadows.
Raakhee Gulzar who played Vinod’s wife in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Bemisal points out how vital Vinod was to the equation in the triangle, “Amitabh’s performance or mine wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t for Vinod Mehra.”
A truly invisible actor, that was Vinod Mehra. The best kind of actor to be.
Vinod’s son Rohan Mehra, himself a mouldable actor seen in the recent Four More Shots Please, recalls the unobtrusive actor that was his father, with tremendous affection. “We all miss him. However, I know he is always with me-, guiding me to be the best person I can be. The more time goes by the more I learn about him and understand who he was as a human and as an artist. Everything I do, I try to make him proud.”
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.
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