Dev Anand was a ‘vegetarian’ actor, Shammi Kapoor’s image was created by Nasir Hussain, says Javed Akhtar

Javed Akhtar credited Nasir Hussain for creating the on screen image of Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor.

New Delhi | Updated: March 13, 2025 09:20 AM IST

Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor had a unique, distinct style on screen.

Back in the 1950s, actors in the Hindi film industry were known for their distinct style. Stars such as Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor had a unique persona on screen, which made them stand apart from the rest. In a recent chat, veteran screenwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar said that filmmaker Nasir Hussain was the one who created this unique style for both Dev and Shammi. Javed was in conversation with actor Aamir Khan for the film festival ‘Aamir Khan: Cinema Ka Jadugar’. Aamir Khan is Nasir’s nephew.

Known for directing films like Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Caravan, Yaadon Ki Baaraat, among others, Nasir was credited with highlighting Shammi’s unique qualities on screen, and was seen as the filmmaker who was responsible for making him star. Javed recalled that before working with Nasir, Shammi had a very different appearance, and his on-screen style wasn’t all that distinct. But, it all changed after he made Tumsa Nahin Dekha. “Shammi Kapoor used to have a moustache, a different hairstyle. He changed Shammi’s image in Tumsa Nahin Dekha. All of this youthfulness, films that have this bubbliness, elements that people are still trying to add in their films, it was invented by him. It did not exist before him,” he said.

Javed added that even Dev Anand’s on-screen image was created by Nasir Hussain. Nasir wrote two of Dev’s films – 1955’s Munimji and 1957’s Paying Guest. He later directed Dev in 1961’s Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai. Javed shared, “Dev Anand became Dev Anand after Nasir saab’s films Munimji, Paying Guest. This image of Dev Anand that we know… Dev Anand was a very vegetarian actor. There was a film that Dev Anand did, I am forgetting its name, it had two friends. One was a playboy and the other one was a Gandhian. The role of the playboy was done by Manmohan Krishna and Dev saab played the Gandhian,” he shared. This was the 1951 film Aaram. Before working with Nasir, Dev was already a superstar who had done films like Baazi, Jaal and Taxi Driver.

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Talking about Nasir, Javed Akhtar called him “one of the most underrated or under-recognised producer-directors of the film industry.” During his screenwriting days, Javed Akhtar, along with Salim Khan, worked with Nasir on Yaadon Ki Baaraat. This was one of the first hits of Salim-Javed as a writing duo. However, Nasir is credited as a co-writer in the film. Salim-Javed did not work with Nasir Hussain after this.

Nasir was reportedly upset with Salim-Javed for giving him a script that was quite similar to Zanjeer, but he did not realise it until both films were out. “It was too late when I realised that Salim-Javed had palmed off the same basic plot to me and Prakash Mehra. But our characters and treatment were completely different, and so both Zanjeer and my film were major hits in the same year,” he said in an interview published posthumously, quoted in Diptakirti Chaudhuri’s book ‘Written by Salim-Javed’.

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