June 5th, 2010

Premnath

Premnath

Premnath

He was the scariest screen villain because he could look completely amoral. An ex-army man, Premnath’s energetic performance as a callous philanderer in brother-in-law, Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat (’49) made him a star. Charged by success, the teetotaller, vegetarian, non-smoker, was engulfed with “a desire to indulge in vices”. Soon he had made a career out of projecting vices onscreen. He worked as a hero with the biggest of heroines like Madhubala (whom he loved and lost) and Bina Rai (whom he loved and married), but he was most famous for his mean-minded characters like the cruel prince in Aan (’52).

He was almost forgotten in the 60s till director Vijay Anand offered him Johnny Mera Naam (’70). When he saw Premnath kissing his own image while watching a film on his home-projector, Anand specially created the role of the debauched Rai saab. Premnath made a tremendous impact as the psychotic pervert who mauls the moll (Padma Khanna), forcing her to do a striptease in exchange of her boyfriend’s life, only to doublecross her after she capitulates.

Premnath was the highest paid villain in the early 70s. He could look like somebody straight out of one of the lower circles of Dante’s hell and be equally effective as the sputtering Samaritan in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan or the large- hearted, cuss word spewing Goan fisherman in Bobby. He fuelled his eccentric screen image with catatonic behaviour offscreen. Even his aide was called Bond!

In the 80s, Premnath suffered from neuritis which sapped him of his energy. His devoted wife, Bina Rai, nursed him till the last. Nadira, who did her debut film, Aan, with ‘Daddy’ Premnath, fondly states, “If he were mad, there should have been more like him.”

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