Amitabh Bachchan’s initial Shahenshah costume was given to Jeetendra by designer, Tinnu Anand says he was ‘cheated’

Tinnu Anand revealed that Amitabh Bachchan's iconic costume in Shahenshah was inspired by a French advertisement.

New Delhi | August 24, 2023 10:00 PM IST

3 min read

Shahenshah was released in 1988.

Listen to this article

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Shahenshah, released in 1988 and featuring Amitabh Bachchan, remains iconic for its dialogues and, notably, Amitabh’s steel arm—a pivotal element of the film’s costume. Director Tinnu Anand has now revealed that the steel outfit wasn’t the original choice. Tinu mentioned that his first design was taken by a designer and given to Jeetendra because the movie production had stopped. But later, they got a different designer to make a new costume for Amitabh, which he really liked.

In an interview with Radio Nasha, Tinnu said, “I designed the costume personally. With the help of Amitabh’s designer, we came up with a black leather outfit: black pants, black shoes, and black boots. I even added a rope around his shoulder, though that idea was later dropped. Then, what Akbar (Amitabh’s designer) did was, he cheated on me. He gave that costume to Jeetendra. If you see his film, he’s wearing the same costume, just with the rope. I was angry, disappointed and hurt.” Jeetendra is said to have used that costume in the film Aag Aur Shola, also starring Sridevi.

Tinnu said that when Amitabh came back, he asked, ‘Tinnu, what about the costume?’ The director explained to Amitabh that the designer had given the costume to Jeetendra and also told him that he will never work with Akbar. Amitabh said, ‘Okay, then where will you go?’ Tinnu said, ‘Kishore Bajaj.’

Also read | Amitabh Bachchan was told by doctors he would never act again due to this disease, almost choked to death on a sip of water: Tinnu Anand

The director had earlier revealed that the steel arm weighed 14 kgs. He said, “We sat down, we went through hundreds of magazines, going through clothes. And finally, we landed up on an ad by a French company who designed fencing clothes, sword fencing. And there was this ad of this arm, starting from the shoulder to the wrists, and that was fascinating. So I said, ‘Do you think you can design this?’ He said, ‘It will take a lot of time, effort, and a lot of money.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about that. Just give me a design.’”

Amitabh eventually loved the costume and finalised it. Tinnu said, “So Kishore brought in the bag with the costume, which was very, very heavy. Amitabh said, ‘This is what I’m going to wear during my fights?’ I said, ‘Let’s see you wear it.’ So we left the room and we came back after about 10 minutes. There was a wall-to-wall mirror and he was standing there. He was very, very impressed. He said, ‘Okay, done. This is final.'”

From the homepage