Om Prakash (O. P.) Ralhan was born on 21 August 1928 in
Sialkot,
British India, current Pakistan, into a prosperous
Hindu Arora family. He was 19 years old when the
partition of India happened. He and his family were compelled to leave home and wealth and move as refugees to the territory which remained with India. Here, having lost all their capital and business, they were compelled to work at small jobs to earn a living. O.P. happened to find work with film-makers. Around this time, something else happened which drew him closer to the film world. Ralhan played small roles in films from early 1950s to the early 1960s. By this time, his brother-in-law had become a very big film star, and he told Ralhan to produce a film starring him. Ralhan managed to get distributors to finance his first film:
Gehra Daag (1963), with
Rajendra Kumar and
Mala Sinha in lead roles. The film was moderately successful, but Ralhan now had a foothold in the industry. Phool aur Phattar, directed by Ralhan himself, with a cast including Meena Kumari, Shashikala and Dharmendra, which went on to make him into a super star. The film was quite successful in Hindi & was also made in Tamil, "Oli Vilakku" starring M.G. Ramachandran, Jaya Lalithaa & Sowkar Janaki. However, he is best remembered as the Director (and also its producer) for film:
Talash (1969) with
Rajendra Kumar and
Sharmila Tagore). The film had excellent music by composer
Sachin Dev Burman. It was the most expensive movie made of its time.
Hulchul, a comedy suspense thriller without songs.
Bandhe Haath a Doppelgänger story starring
Mumtaz and
Amitabh Bachchan. "Mari Bena" was his venture into regional films starring Reeta Bhaduri, Arvind Kirad,
Dina Pathak and himself. His another suspense hit
Paapi (1977) a multi starrer with an ensemble cast of
Sunil Dutt,
Sanjeev Kumar,
Zeenat Aman,
Reena Roy,
Prem Chopra,
Danny Denzongpa. His last film
Pyaas was made on social subejct starring
Tanuja,
Zeenat Aman, Kawaljeet Singh and himself. Among Ralhan's notable achievements are giving breaks to struggling actors and also introducing new actors in his films. He directed film
Mujrim (1958) starring
Shammi Kapoor and
Ragini. He made
Phool Aur Patthar (1966) which became
Dharmendra's first golden jubilee hit.
Zeenat Aman was first introduced into Bollywood by O. P. Ralhan in his 1971 film
Hulchul, although the misconception is that
Dev Anand brought her with
Hare Rama Hare Krishna. Ralhan also introduced
Kabir Bedi in
Hulchul. ==Filmography==