The Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal love story, on Throwback Thursday

An entire generation of women saw their dream guy in Shashi Kapoor, yet he fell in love with Jennifer Kendal. On his 83rd birth anniversary today, here's looking at the couple's filmy love story, on Throwback Thursday.

Listen to Story

Advertisement
The Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal love story, on Throwback Thursday
Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal in a throwback picture.

He was the Kapoor with a difference. A heartthrob of sorts, Shashi Kapoor's dimples, his crooked canines, his looks and dialogue delivery made women from different corners of the country land up at his door to ask his hand for marriage. However, the veteran actor lost his heart to Jennifer Kendal and their love story is nothing short of a romantic movie. Shashi remained devoted to his beloved wife till the day he died. Jennifer died in 1984.

advertisement

On Shashi Kapoor's 83rd birth anniversary today, let's take a look at the couple's love story.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

How did it all start? It was the Royal Opera House in Mumbai, then Bombay, where Shashi caught a glimpse of a beautiful girl dressed in a black-and-white polka-dotted dress. Little did he know then that the girl, Jennifer Kendal, daughter of Shakespearana's Goeffrey Kendal, would change his life.

According to Jennifer's sister Felicity Kendal's autobiography White Cargo, this is where their love story started. However, Geoffrey Kendal stuck to a somewhat different version in his own autobiography. According to him, the incident took place at the Empire House in Calcutta.

Moving on, Shashi Kapoor took Jennifer backstage and by the next afternoon, the couple was in love. During the next five months of their courtship, Jennifer taught Shashi phrases and words from Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw.

JENNIFER'S FATHER DIDN'T APPROVE OF SHASHI

However, it was not all rosy in the beginning as Jennifer's father was against their relationship. He would not hear of the actor marrying his daughter and was often nasty towards him. He chastised him for his accent and fought with him over Jennifer, but that couldn't keep the couple apart.

In a biography of Shashi Kapoor written by Aseem Chhabra, the couple's daughter Sanjana was quoted as saying, "When they were doing theatre (Shashi and Jennifer), they were poor. They were under-slept and underfed and my father would tell me how they would be tormented by hunger while strolling down the streets - both my parents trying to decide if they could get half a paratha. Then, they would walk past a restaurant and there would be my grandfather, Geoffrey Kendal, having a huge meal with a beer. My father couldn't walk in. He was his employee, and he was also stealing his daughter. So, there was no way he could march into the storm."

After Geoffrey didn't give them his consent for months, Jennifer mustered the courage to leave his theatre company. After a lot of struggle and failures when their performances were cancelled in Singapore and Malaysia, Shashi asked his brother Raj Kapoor for help. Raj sent two flight tickets to Shashi and Jennifer for Bombay, and the Kapoor family learnt of the affair. In fact, Geeta Bali, the wife of Shammi Kapoor, was the first member of the Kapoor family to meet Jennifer. Geeta gifted a dupatta to Jennifer.

advertisement

In July 1958, 20-year-old Shashi Kapoor and 25-year-old Jennifer Kendal got married. They have three children together, sons Karan and Kunal, and daughter Sanjana. Together, they started the Prithvi Theatre in Bombay in 1978.

WHEN SHASHI CRIED FOR THE FIRST TIME

In 1983, Jennifer was diagnosed with colon cancer and she spent the last months of her life in her home in Britain. She died in 1984, leaving Shashi devastated. His son, Kunal had earlier said, "When he got there, that was the first time he cried. Really, he wept."

Simi Garewal wrote in Shashi Kapoor's biography, "Jennifer occupied - or Shashi surrendered to her - a large part of his personality. And they merged. With Jennifer gone, Shashi struggled, but couldn't find himself. That vast area of his personality that was Jennifer - now it lay empty. A void. I met him in London over dinner with Ismail Merchant and could see that he was floundering. He was different - not himself."

SHASHI KAPOOR, THE HEARTTHROB OF AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF WOMEN

advertisement

Women may have lusted after other actors, but they fell in love with Shashi Kapoor. Be it his dimpled cheeks or his on-screen romance, lovelorn daughters, mothers and even grandmothers believed in him as a romantic lover. His 1965 film Jab Jab Phool Khile was a key takeaway as his romance with leading co-actor Nanda was simply unmissable.

Given the lineage of the Kapoor family, Shashi was amazingly handsome, with a unique style and an elegant physique. Add to that his goofy grin, and you had a Greek god right there. Women lined up at his door from all over the country. Shashi Kapoor had even narrated an incident involving a female fan who sat on her trunk on his building's premises for weeks until the police forcibly removed her.

Shashi Kapoor died on December 4, 2017, leaving a nation grappling with the loss of a Kapoor like no other.

ALSO READ I RIP Shashi Kapoor: 10 things you did not know about the legendary actor

ALSO READ I Shashi Kapoor, an actor and a gentleman, dies at 79 after prolonged illness

ALSO READ I Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal's children: Meet Karan, Kunal and Sanjana