[4] Rajendra Kumar was born in a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family in Sialkot, in the Punjab province of British India.

However, their friendship fell apart after their children broke the engagement and Kumar Gaurav married Sunil Dutt and Nargis's daughter Namrata.

[8] After beginning his acting career with small roles in Patanga (1949) and Jogan (1950), Rajendra Kumar appeared as a main lead in Devendra Goel's Vachan (1955) alongside Geeta Bali.

His first release, the drama film Zindagi aur Khwab alongside Meena Kumari was a critical and commercial hit.

[24] He then appeared in Mohan Kumar's Aas Ka Panchhi opposite Vyjayanthimala and S. S. Vasan's Gharana co-starring Asha Parekh, both of which went on to become blockbusters.

[27] The film opened to highly positive response from critics and emerged a blockbuster with Kumar receiving his first nomination in the Filmfare Award for Best Actor category.

[22] His last release of the year was H. S. Rawail's muslim social Mere Mehboob which also had Ashok Kumar and Sadhana in the main lead.

His first release that year was Mohan Kumar's Ayee Milan Ki Bela co-starring Saira Banu and Dharmendra.

[36] It received widespread acclaim, with high praise for its novel concept, direction, screenplay, dialogue, soundtrack, costumes, cinematography and performances of the cast, and is widely considered as Hindi cinema's greatest love triangle.

[39][40] The music of Sangam was a huge chartbuster with songs that remain popular till date like "Dost Dost Na Raha", "Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega", "Bol Radha Bol", "Yeh Mera Prem Patra" and emerged as the best-selling Hindi film album of the 1960s.

[41] The mega success of Ayee Milan Ki Bela and Sangam was followed by a superhit in Ramanand Sagar's second directional venture Zindagi.

[46] The film backed up with superhit songs, including ""Baharon Phool Barsao", sung by Rafi and "Titli Udi Ud Jo Chali", a solo by Sharda, went on to become a massive blockbuster and Kumar's sixth consecutive hit.

[47][48] The following year, however, his dream run ended with both of his releases, Aman and Palki, proving to be critical and commercial failures.

[52] The year 1969 saw the emergence of another superstar in the form of Rajesh Khanna, who stormed the nation with back-to-back blockbusters in Aradhana and Do Raaste.

[57] A remake of Tamil mega hit Neerum Neruppum, it proved to be an equally successful venture in Hindi and emerged a blockbuster as well as the fifth highest grossing film of the year.

[59] Recalled as one of the costliest films of its time, Lalkar failed to live up to the huge expectations and ended up as an average fare.

[68] After this, he did a guest appearance in another of his son's acting venture Star (1982) and took up supporting roles in few films like Lovers (1983), Main Tere Liye (1988), Clerk (1989), but none of them found any success.

State minister for I & B, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said, "The death of the veteran actor, who swayed the emotions of the cinegoers, is a great loss to the industry".