Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian actor, playback singer, producer and television host widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of Hindi cinema, with a career spanning more than five decades and over 200 films.^[2] Born in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) on 11 October 1942, he rose to superstardom in the 1970s playing the "angry young man" in films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay, a persona that came to define a generation of Hindi cinema.^[2] He holds four National Film Awards for Best Actor, more than any other actor, and has received 16 competitive Filmfare Awards along with the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award.^[2]

Beyond acting, he has hosted the Indian game show Kaun Banega Crorepati since 2000, with its eighteenth season premiering on 10 August 2026.^[4] He briefly served as a Member of Parliament in the 1980s and has received India's second and third-highest civilian honours, the Padma Vibhushan (2015) and Padma Bhushan (2001), as well as the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2018.^[2] In October 2026 he suffered a knee injury while shooting an episode of KBC 18 and later clarified, after retirement rumours spread, that he had no plans to stop working.^[5]

Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad to the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and the social activist Teji Bachchan.^[2] His father, of Awadhi Hindu Kayastha background, wrote under the pen name "Bachchan" rather than the family surname Srivastava, in rejection of the caste system, and this became the surname the family later adopted for official use.^[2] His mother was a Punjabi Sikh from Lyallpur, in present-day Pakistan.^[2] He has a younger brother, Ajitabh.^[2] His parents had initially planned to name him Inquilaab, meaning "revolution," before the poet Sumitranandan Pant suggested the name Amitabh instead.^[2]

He was educated at Boys' High School in Allahabad and at Sherwood College in Nainital before attending Kirori Mal College at the University of Delhi, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1962.^[2] After college, his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, founder of Prithvi Theatre, about an acting opening for his son, but received no encouragement.^[2] Bachchan later failed an audition to become a newsreader for All India Radio, and instead worked as a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata while doing theatre on the side before moving into films.^[2]

His screen career began in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award-winning film Bhuvan Shome, and his first on-screen acting role came the same year in Saat Hindustani.^[2] Early roles followed in films including Anand (1971), which brought him his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, though many of his films in this period performed poorly and he was seen as a struggling newcomer by the time he turned 30.^[2]

Bachchan's breakthrough came through the screenwriting duo Salim-Javed, who conceived the "angry young man" persona for Zanjeer (1973) and insisted on casting him in the lead after several established stars turned the role down.^[2] The film was a blockbuster, and the partnership produced some of Hindi cinema's most enduring films, including Deewaar (1975) and Sholay (1975), the latter the highest-grossing Indian film of its time and later declared the BBC's "Film of the Millennium."^[2] Through the late 1970s and 1980s he dominated the industry, topping Box Office India's annual "Top Actors" list sixteen times between 1976 and 1991, in films such as Amar Akbar Anthony, Don, Trishul, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar and Mard.^[2] French director Francois Truffaut described the Hindi film industry of the era as a "one-man industry" because of his dominance.^[2]

In 1982, while filming a fight scene for Coolie, he suffered a near-fatal intestinal injury that required an emergency splenectomy and left him critically ill for months; the film's ending was rewritten so his character survived, mirroring his own recovery.^[2] He was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis in 1984 and entered politics the same year, winning a Lok Sabha seat from Allahabad with one of the largest victory margins in Indian election history before resigning in 1987.^[2] His acting career slowed through the late 1980s and early 1990s, and after founding the company Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited in 1996, its financial collapse following the loss-making 1996 Miss World pageant left him close to bankruptcy.^[2]

His comeback began in 2000 with Mohabbatein and the launch of Kaun Banega Crorepati, both of which restored his career and introduced him to a new generation.^[2] The following two decades brought some of his most acclaimed work: a second National Award for Black (2005), a third for Paa (2009) playing a boy with progeria, and a fourth for Piku (2015).^[2] He appeared in The Great Gatsby (2013) opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, marking his Hollywood debut, and in Pink (2016) as a retired lawyer, a performance widely praised by critics.^[2] More recently he starred in Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra: Part One - Shiva (2022), the highest-grossing Hindi film of that year, and made his Telugu debut playing Ashwatthama in Nag Ashwin's Kalki 2898 AD (2024), one of the biggest Indian films of that year.^[2]

He continues to host Kaun Banega Crorepati, with its eighteenth season premiering on Sony Entertainment Television and Sony LIV on 10 August 2026.^[4] In October 2026 he revealed he had injured his knee after slipping on the KBC set, continuing to host episodes while seated, and later moved to clarify media reports that he was planning to retire.^[5]

Bachchan has been married to the actress and politician Jaya Bhaduri since 3 June 1973.^[2] They have two children: Shweta, an author and former model, and Abhishek, an actor and producer who is married to the actress Aishwarya Rai; the couple's daughter, Aaradhya, is Bachchan's granddaughter.^[2] Shweta is married to businessman Nikhil Nanda, grandson of the actor Raj Kapoor.^[2]

Bachchan has long been rumoured to have had a relationship with actress Rekha, his co-star in several films between the mid-1970s and early 1980s, though both have denied it.^[2] He has described himself as a vegetarian, a teetotaler and a non-smoker, and has said he does not adhere to any particular organised religion despite being born to a Hindu father and Sikh mother.^[2] In 2023 he gifted his longtime Juhu bungalow, Prateeksha, to his daughter Shweta, continuing to reside in his other Mumbai residence, Jalsa.^[2]

He has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for polio eradication since 2002 and a WHO Goodwill Ambassador for hepatitis awareness since 2017, and has cleared the debts of hundreds of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Vidarbha and Bihar over the years through personal donations.^[2] In July 2026 he drew public backlash over a social media post about France's national football team during the FIFA World Cup, which some commentators characterised as racially insensitive.^[1] Estimates of his net worth vary widely across publications, from roughly US$200 million to over US$600 million, reflecting different methods of counting his real estate, endorsement income and business stakes; because these figures are unaudited, they should be treated as approximate.^[3]