Raj Kapoor refused to work with Geeta Bali, told director, ‘Mere standard ki ladki lo’ after she fell on hard times and began working for Rs 6,000

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Kidar Sharma recalled this story in a chat with Prasar Bharti. He said that Geeta was the most hard-working star that he ever had the good fortune of working with in his career, and he worked with the best of them. “She turned her back on me when she became a star, I was distraught,” he said, adding, “I forgot all about it, but one day, she came to me with her mother, hat in hand. All her films were flopping and nobody was willing to hire her even for Rs 6,000.”

He continued, “They said, ‘Bade pit ke aaye hain, aap humko apne sharan mein le lo (We’ve lost everything, please take us back). Geeta said that she had learned her lesson. Initially, I wanted to kick them out, but later, I felt sorry for them because I would’ve made the same mistake. Plus, it was generous of them to admit that they were wrong. So, I hired her for Bawre Nain. But I knew that she alone couldn’t sell the film. So I went to Raj Kapoor. I told him that I couldn’t pay him what others were, but he said that he would do my film anyway. He asked who his co-star would be, and I told him, ‘Geeta Bali’.”

Photographed at the function with them are the wives of the three brothers Krishna Kapoor, Geeta Bali and Jenifer standing near Raj Kapoor is his daughter Ritu (only face visible). Express archive photo on 05.12.1961

Raj Kapoor was shocked. He told Kidar Sharma, “Sir, kya baat karte ho, kam se kam mere standard ki toh ladki lo (Bring someone of my standard).” Kidar Sharma told him to give Geeta a chance for just one day, and then make up his mind. Raj Kapoor had a condition; she wouldn’t utter a single line of dialogue. “Raj ki chhutti kar di uss ladki ne (She blew him away),” Kidar Sharma recalled, adding that Raj Kapoor agreed to work with her subsequently. Geeta would go on to marry his brother, Shammi Kapoor, after which she stopped acting and devoted herself to raising a family. Geeta died tragically young, at the age of 34, due to smallpox.

In his episode of Ek Mulaqat, Kidar Sharma recalled signing Geeta Bali after meeting her in her dingy accommodation. “There was no place for me to even sit. They place a slab of wood, and covered it with a sheet, and asked me to sit there. And the second I sat down, I saw the girl I’d come to meet. That was Geeta. I selected her,” he said.