Nana Palsikar

Nana Palsikar Biography

Nana Palsikar was one of the finest character artists of Indian cinema. He was associated with Bollywood and has won Filmfare award for best supporting actor twice. Shehar Aur Sapna in 1965 and Kanoon in 1962 are those two movies. Shehar Aur Sapna also gave him BFJA Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Hindi). He has worked in both mainstream and art movies. Kaalia from BR Chopra’s Kanoon and school teacher Sharmaji from Dosti are his memorable roles.

He was born in 1907 in Maharashtra. He made his first onscreen appearance aside Leela Chitnis in Sumumar Chatterjee's Dhuwandhar in the year 1935. Later he appeared in movies – Kandan, Durga and Bahurani to take a long break from silver screen to only return through the legendary movie, Do Bheega Zamin in 1953 directed by Bimal Roy. He played the character Dhangu Maheto in this highly acclaimed movie. Later he played character roles in several landmark Hindi movies like V. Shantaram's Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, Bimal Roy's Devdas, Raj Kapoor's Shree 420, Sombhu Mitra's Jagte Raho and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anari and all of those proved to be major success at box office as well.

1962 movie Kanoon was his major breakthrough. The role of a petty thief was offered by B. R. Chopra and he earned his first Filmfare award through this movie. The real star of the movie after interval was none other than Palsikar – noted many dailies. Khwaja Ahmad Abbas's Shehar Aur Sapna bagged him his second Filmfare and only Bengali Journalist Association award in 1965, where he played the role of Johny. He regularly appeared in Bollywood movies till early 1980s and Hollywood movie – Gandhi was his last noted release.

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Updated: October 10, 2014