Fashion Plate Blog

Veteran actor-producer-director-social activist Chandrashekhar will be honoured with the Legend Award by Dadasaheb Phalke Academy at the annual function to be held on April 30, the anniversary day of the founder of Indian Cinema.

Chandrashekhar is selected for the award for his pioneering work in bringing out cordial atmosphere in employer and worker relations in the film industry. He was among the artistes who initiated the formation of the Cine Artistes’ Association, now known as Cine and TV Artistes’ Association.

He is a former president of the Association. He was president of the Federation of Western India Cine employees for a record number of 13 years. He is also a past president of the All India Film Employees’ Confederation. Before the formation of these associations, labour troubles were rampant in the film industry. There used to be violent fights, even murders. Chandrashekhar is respected by the workers and producers as well for creating peaceful atmosphere in the industry, and amicable settlement of disputes through disputes committees.

He joined film Industry at the grass root level as an extra in early 40’s.

Surang in 1953 was his first movie, which gave recognition as an artiste and later acted as a hero and character artiste in many films. Worked with top Directors of yesteryears like Messrs. V.Shantaram,Nitin Bose,Devki Bose,Vijay Bhatt, Bhagwan.A. Palav and Many others. Also worked with S/Shri B.R.Chopra, Prakash Mehra, Late. Manmohan Desai,Shakti Samanta,Ramanand Sagar,Pramod Chakraborthy and many other well-known film concerns.

Became an independent Producer, Writer and Director and made two films “CHA CHA CHA” AND “STREET SINGER” which won many awards and Journalists Awards for Best Purposeful Films.

The Artistes’ association and Film Writers’ Association had recommended Chandrashekhar’s name to Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry for the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his services to the industry.

We hope the Government would listen this year as according to the established norms, he deserves the award. Chandrashekhar celebrated his 74th wedding anniversary on March 1 with family and close friends. It was a low key celebration as his wife Pushpa Devi is not keeping good health for some time. We wish her speedy recovery.