Kidar Sharma

Kidar Nath Sharma, also Kedar Sharma (12 April 1910 – 29 April 1999), was an Indian film director, producer, screenwriter, and Lyricist of Hindi films. While he had great success as a director of such movies as Neel Kamal (1947), Bawre Nain (1950) and Jogan (1950). He is most remembered for starting the acting careers of popular Bollywood actors like Madhubala, Geeta Bali, Raj Kapoor, Mala Sinha, Bharat Bhushan and Tanuja. Early life and education Kidar Sharma was born in a Punjabi brahmin family Narowal in what was then the Punjab region of India and grew up in a life of poverty. Two brothers, Ragunath and Vishwa had died as infants and his sister, Taro, died of Tuberculosis at an early age. A younger sister Guro survived as did a younger brother, Himmat Rai Sharma, who would later work with Kidar on films before establishing himself as a successful Urdu poet. Kidar attended the Baij Nath High School in Amritsar where he became interested in philosophy, poetry, painting and photography. Upon completion of high school, he ran away from home to pursue a career in cinema in Mumbai but was unsuccessful in gaining employment. He returned to Amritsar and attended the Hindu Sabha College where he founded a College Dramatic Society which would later give him his first break in film. Career The head of a local Temperance movement would attend one of Kidar's plays and hired him to produce a silent film depicting the evils of alcohol. Using the money he earned from this project he would receive his master's degree in English at Khalsa College, Amritsar before joining a local theatre group that earned him limited acting success in 1931. He was married in 1932 and painted to earn income. Upon seeing an early talkies film Puran Bhagat (1933) by film director Debaki Bose, he left for Calcutta hoping to get his big break at New Theatres Studios, where Debaki Bose worked. After many months of unemployment he managed to meet a then-unknown actor of New Theatres, Prithviraj Kapoor (where he would meet Prithviraj's eight-year-old son for the first time, Raj Kapoor). Prithviraj Kapoor introduced Kidar to his neighbour, then-unknown Kundan Lal Saigal, who through an acquaintance allowed Kidar to meet Debaki Bose.