Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan is a legendary Bollywood actor, and one of the most prominent figures in the film industry. He has been awarded major awards in his career, including three National Film Awards and twelve Filmfare Awards. He holds the record for most number of Best Actor nominations at the Filmfare Awards. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer, television presenter, and was an elected member of the Parliament from 1984 to 1987. Bachchan is married to Jaya and has two children, Shweta Nanda and Abhishek Bachchan. He is also the father-in-law of Aishwarya Rai.

In 1984, Amitabh took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's Parliament seat against H. N. Bahuguna, a well-known politician, and won his MP candidacy by the highest victory margin ever for a parliamentary candidate in history (68.2% of the vote). His political career, however, was short-lived: He resigned after three years, leaving his term incomplete. The resignation followed Bachchan's implication and that of his brother in the 'Bofors scandal' by a newspaper, which he vowed to take to court. Bachchan was eventually found not to be guilty of involvement in the ordeal. His old friend Amar Singh helped him during a financial crisis due to the failure of his company ABCL. Therefore Bachchan started to support Amar Singh's political party, the Samajwadi party. Jaya Bachchan joined Samajwadi Party and became a Rajya Sabha Member. Bachchan has continued to do favours for the Samajwadi party, including adverts and political campaigns. This has recently got him into trouble again in the courts for false claims, this is after a previous fiasco of submission of legal papers by him stating that he is a farmer.

Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period and setup Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (A.B.C.L.) in 1996 with the vision of becoming a 10 billion rupees (approx 250 million $US) India's premier entertainment company by the year 2000. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering the entire section of the India's entertainment industry. It's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film produced by the company was Tere Mere Sapne which failed to do well at the box office but launched the careers of actors such as Arshad Warsi and South films superstar Simran. ABCL produced a few other films none of which did well. In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudaata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, like most of ABCL ventures, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the The 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore and lost millions due to the poor management of the event. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later on declared as a failed company by Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999 restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to Sahara India Finance for raising funds for his company. Bachchan later attempted to revive his acting career and had average success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999) but most, however, then believed that Bachchan's glory days were over as all his other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.

In the year 2000, Bachchan stepped up to host India's adaptation of the British television game-show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? entitled, Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC). As it did in most other countries where it was adopted, the program found immediate and profound success, in no small part due to Bachchan's charisma. It is believed that Bachchan charged a whopping Rs 25 lakhs (2.5 million Rupees, approximately US$60,000 ) per weekly episode which strengthened Bachchan and his family both financially and morally after the setbacks that he had to cope after ABCL's collapse. The Canara Bank also withdrew its law suit against Bachchan in November 2000. Bachchan hosted KBC till November 2005, and its success set the stage for his return to film popularity.