When stars stop shining

It was in the course of a conversation at a party that Sharad Kapoor suddenly opened up about what it felt like, being reduced to a nonentity after having been a star.

The big fall
Kapoor burst onto the TV screens with one of the most talked about soaps, Swabhimaan. Then, like Shah Rukh Khan, he sought a smooth transition from the small screen to the silver screen. But his debut film, Mera Pyara Bharat (1994) tanked. Yet he still managed a big break as the antagonist in Sushmita Sen's debut film, Dastak (1996). Never mind if that turned out to be a dud too, Kapoor again managed a parallel role opposite the biggest star in the country today, Shah Rukh Khan, in Josh (2000). After that, though he managed to get a small role in the Hrithik Roshan-hit Lakshya (2004), he vanished abruptly.

Some said that he had gone back to Kolkata to join his brother's thriving catering business. Friends close to him revealed that that he was suffering from depression and trying to come to terms with his 'changed' status. Recently, he was seen shooting in Mumbai again. But the ravages of time have left many a frown line on his face.

Falling from stardom is one of the most traumatic experiences for people in the entertainment industry. Little wonder that almost every star has hired a PR agency to plug all kinds of stories about them in the media so that they continue to remain in the public eye.
"There will be a day when people will stop following us. Yeh jeevan ki reet hai. All of us who are on the wrong side of the hill know that we'll have to fade away one day. The older generation makes way for the new generation. This is true not only for the film industry but for every walk of life," says Amitabh Bachchan, of an age-old truth that never really hits you till it hits you.

Actor Tushar Kapoor has an interesting take on why loss of stardom would hit an actor harder than most others. "I think a lot of people suffer from a false or illusory notion of stardom about themselves. That's when you worry about it going away. I have seen so many people suffer from this syndrome, that when they don't have anyone around to lick their feet, or don't have photographers falling over each other to click them, it hits them very badly."

When it finally hits you
And when it does hit you, it hurts like hell. Some take it on the chin; but others, like Shekhar Suman, for example, feels it as a blow below the belt.

Suman became an overnight star when his debut film with Rekha, Utsav (1984) produced everything that he wished for: international buzz, controversies, everybody trying to find out who this new boy was, and every critic proclaiming that 'he had arrived'. But things immediately began to go wrong, and in Suman's own words, he hurtled towards a "massive depression."

"The film (Utsav) got delayed for two years due to Jennifer's (Shashi Kapoor's wife and co-producer of the film) death. When it finally released, I became a star overnight. But I had signed nothing in the meantime," he recalls. Suman went on to do a few movies with the top actresses of that time (Madhuri Dixit, Padmini Kolhapure, Juhi Chawla), but all of them bombed at the box office. "Soon, I was in a terrible financial crunch. And I ended up signing B-grade movies for my survival".

Between 1987-1989, Suman acted in a slew of atrocious films: Anjaane Rishte, Tere Bina Kya Jeena, Kaanoon Ki Awaaz, Tujhe Nahin Chhodunga, Jaan Pe Khel Kar, Insaaf Ki Manzil, Kharidar, Woh Phir Aayegi. "I felt ashamed of myself on the sets and kept asking myself, 'what am I doing here?' I went into deep depression when things got worse after a personal tragedy," he says. Suman's eldest son Ayush died of a rare heart ailment.

"It was such a difficult phase that I thought I won't survive it. I felt like a failure when I was told that I needed to look at TV as a medium to survive. My depression was becoming worse every day when Jaya Bachchan came along like an angel with Dekh Bhai Dekh [first aired in 1993, it became one of the most successful sitcoms on Indian television]. My life changed after that," says Suman.

'Nobody would talk to me'
If Suman's situation was bad, then Monica Bedi's was worse. Bedi recalls that she went into depression because people were so afraid of her that they rejected her at "every step". She says, "When I was acting with the biggest stars of Bollywood, like Sanjay Dutt (in Jodi Number One), Twinkle Khanna and Govinda in 2001, there were scores of people around me just waiting for me to talk to them. I was then on my way to stardom, but everything changed rapidly, and I found myself in jail. It couldn't have gotten worse for a woman. When I came out of it, people rejected me everywhere, everyday, and every instance. Nobody would even speak to me. They all seemed too scared to even take my calls. There were so many times when I thought that I should end my life because it was not worth it. If my parents had not constantly told me 'it's okay', I don't know if I would be talking to you today. For me it was not only a fall from whatever stardom I had achieved, it was a fall from grace. As a woman, I just couldn't take it. Today, when I look back, I still can't believe I made it through," says Bedi.

Ready for the inevitable
It's not as if all actors don't see it coming. Superstars like Akshay Kumar are aware of their USP and what might happen to them if they lose it. He has a solution to offer too. "Every star knows that he or she will not go on forever. In my case, I know that my action is what sets me apart from the rest. That's why I don't think twice when there's a difficult shot that has to be executed. I know that the day I'm not able to do that, I should stop coming to the sets."
Says director and producer Subhash Ghai, "There have been a lot of instances when I have been approached by a star and I had to politely say, 'not now' to that person. Saying 'no' is an intrinsic part of our business decision, as it's all about making money. If I need a star and somebody is no longer a star then I will have to say no to that person."

Psychiatrist Seema Hingorrany believes that the real problem is that the actors don't make a back-up plan when they are stars. "Some of them are so busy basking in the glory of stardom that when it is finally gone, they find it difficult to come to terms with it. I have seen so many such cases come to me and when I ask them, 'Okay, tell me, what can you do next', they tell me, 'It's acting that I do best and I don't know what else I can do'. Most of them have gone through tremendous hardships, and made sacrifices for their place in the sun. They cannot take it when the sunlight turns into darkness."

Akshay Kumar, for one, seems to have learnt that lesson well. "You must know your strengths and weaknesses and work on them. If you are just basking in the glory of your stardom, then it could hit you really hard when it's over. But if your feet are planted on the ground, then you can almost see it coming and can make the necessary adjustments."

Link http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/report_when-stars-stop-shining_1350520