Salim-Javed insisted on casting Amitabh Bachchan in Deewaar, never narrated film to Rajesh Khanna: Rajiv Rai recalls

Also read – When an angry Jaya Bachchan reprimanded Rajesh Khanna for insulting Amitabh Bachchan, predicted ‘he’ll run Bollywood one day’

He continued, “From what I remember, I don’t think Zanjeer had come out. It wasn’t like we saw a film and took him. Later on, of course, he had a queue outside his office. He still does.” Asked if the film was ever ‘launched’ with Rajesh Khanna, Rajiv said, “No, it was never launched. I don’t think Rajesh Khanna was narrated the script. Yash ji was his friend. He must’ve told him that he’s directing a film for Gulshan ji next. Rajesh Khanna was a great friend of my father’s, and mine, too. We were very keen to work with him, but that never happened.”

In an old interview with Lehren, Salim Khan had said that casting Rajesh Khanna in the film would’ve been a compromise. “There is something like ideal and compromising casting. We strongly felt that Amitabh Bachchan was the ideal casting for Deewaar. Rajesh Khanna was signed by Deewaar’s producer Gulshan Rai but we very strongly felt that the story’s right casting is Amitabh Bachchan and we insisted that if you want to make this film then only Amitabh will work in this. Maybe the film would have worked with someone else but it wouldn’t have been an ideal casting. It would have been a compromise,” he said.

Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan (left) in Anand.

Later, in a heated interaction recalled by Rishi Kapoor in his autobiography, an angry Salim Khan boasted about destroying Rajesh Khanna’s career by introducing audiences to Amitabh. “You know, we had offered Zanjeer to Rajesh Khanna and he turned us down. We didn’t do anything to him but we created an alternative to him, a hero called Amitabh Bachchan, who destroyed Rajesh Khanna. We will do the same to you,’” he told Rishi.

Even Yash Chopra was supposedly fed up with Rajesh Khanna’s growing arrogance. “Yaar, working with him is very difficult… He calls his producers to his home and indulges in drinking till late (in the) night. Till the time he doesn’t want to sleep himself, producers have to show their presence there. Then if he is going to Madras for shooting, the producers are to drop him to the airport and receive him when he comes back. I can’t do this. I can’t handle these superstar tantrums on a regular basis,” he told writer Sagar Sarhadi, according to Rajesh Khanna’s biography.

In a recent interview on the SAM YouTube channel, Javed Akhtar said that Rajesh Khanna being surrounded by sycophants was the reason he didn’t want to work with him. “He was surrounded by so many people, so many sycophants and yes men, it was difficult to work with him. So, we parted ways. We became friendly, and we did a film also much later. But the kind of films that we were writing, and the kind of films that we had in our mind, were much more suitable for an actor like Amitabh Bachchan,” he said.