MUMBAI: Stung by the penniless end of some of Bollywood’s former giants, a new generation of Indian movie stars is turning entrepreneurial to cushion the financial blow of life away from the limelight.
Even with the Bollywood movie industry tipped to grow at 16 per cent a year to 2010, actors have opened restaurants and launched fashion and hotel chains to invest the earnings from their precarious movie careers.
Not all have been successful. India’s biggest star Amitabh Bachchan’s production house folded with losses of 900 million rupees (20 million US dollars) in the late 1990s, but a number have emerged successfully, aided by a dash of glamour and a ready following of fans turned customer.
Bollywood stars showed little acumen for businesses until the 1990s, but the opening of India’s economy has encouraged many to put their own money behind their business schemes.
One of the pioneers was Mithun Chakraborty, a leading Bollywood actor of the 1980s, who started his own hotel business in southern India.
“I made this move when the going was good for me in the film industry. I was one of the top actors then and was doing very well in my career,” he says.
“But at the time I wondered, ‘What will happen to me after the lights, camera and action go?’. I needed to do something other than acting and, therefore, I decided to venture into the hotel business.”
Since Chakraborty, many have followed including actor Bobby Deol, who has opened a chain of restaurants in Mumbai.
Former Miss World and Bollywood actress, Sushmita Sen, launched her own company with plans to make movies and enter the hotel and health spa industry.
“After films what? This question crosses my mind sometimes, and I thought why not start doing something now rather than being late,” says Sen, now aged 30. “One needs to find out alternative earning options besides acting for a better future life.”
Some actors cite the cases of former greats of Indian screen, who died penniless and lonely after extravagant spending during their successful years drove them into poverty.
The 1950s Bollywood superstar Bhagwan rose to fame from a childhood in a one-room home in Mumbai, but a string of investments meant he died in the 1990s poor again and broken-hearted. Comedienne Tuntun died two years ago without many people noticing.
“Tuntun often used to regret that the film industry had forgotten her. She had no roles after she aged,” says a close friend.
Former stars blame high taxes during their peak earning years for their failure to invest in their futures.
“Any film actor is at peak for five to six years and then starts his decline. It’s not possible to invest very wisely in that short period of time, and there’s a lifestyle to maintain too,” says 1970s film villain and current bit-part actor Prem Chopra.
Despite being the world’s largest film industry by volume with some 1,000 films a year, actors earn a fraction of their counterparts in other major movie-making centres.
Apart from the biggest stars who reportedly charge up to 70 million rupees (1.5 million dollars) for a film, most Bollywood leads earn less than 10 million rupees, bumping up their earnings from stage shows and endorsements.
While the lavish spending and the parties continue, there is growing sign of a more level-headed approach to investment in Mumbai, the city where everyone dreams of making money.—AFP
