2012-07-18

Media reports say Rajesh Khanna, the first Hindi film actor to gain superstar status in Indian films, has died after a brief illness. He was 69. The Press Trust of India news agency says the actor died at his home in Mumbai on Wednesday. It says his wife, actress Dimple Kapadia, and two daughters were at his bedside when he died. Khanna began his career in the mid-1960s in romantic films that were hugely popular. He played the lead in 170 movies and won scores of awards in a three-decade career in Bollywood, India's Hindi film industry. His enormous success was a new phenomenon in India. Screaming fans surrounded him whenever he appeared in public. Women married his photograph and wrote him letters in their blood.