Why are successful actor's kids not successful and vice versa?

Is it luck or just a coincidence that most of the kids of actors who were successful failed to make it big in Bollywood and vice-versa?

We have so many examples except for a few exceptions.

Amitabh and Abhishek (Amitabh was and is a superstar while Abhishek did not get that much success)

Babita and Kairishma (Baibta wasn't successful enough compared to Karishma/Kareena)

Hema and Esha Deol

Dimple, Rajesh Khanna and Twinkle/Dinky

Mala Sinha and Pratibha Sinha

Pankaj and Shahid

Sharmila and Saif

Tanuja and Kajol

Exceptions are like Ranbir and Rishi where both succeeded and became stars.

This was 10/20 years back ! When talent still counted for something !

As Baingani said in the Soni thread... silverspoon ka prashurrr!

Exception is Rakesh Roshan and HR. 👍🏼

Pankaj never acted as a hero while Shahid always have been, so they shouldn't be put together in this list.

Originally posted by: prerna4rishav

Exception is Rakesh Roshan and HR. 👍🏼

Rakesh Roshan wasn't successful.

Originally posted by: ffkhan

Pankaj never acted as a hero while Shahid always have been, so they shouldn't be put together in this list.

Pankaj never got a chance as a hero unlike Shahid. Same goes with Suresh Oberoi and Chunkey Pandey. They were never heroes but supporting and character artists.

If you expand criteria a bit, there are succesful combos.

Salim Khan was a successful writer and Salman is super successful

Javid Akhtar was successful writer and both his kids Farhan and Zoya are quite successful

Jackie Shroff was successful and so is Tiger.

Privithiraj Kapoor, Raj kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Ranbir, Shashi Kapoor, Shammi kapoor.

Dharmendra and sunny Deol.

Jitendra and Ekta Kapoor-not as actor, but she is a tycoon.

Yash Chopra and Aditya and same for Karan and his dad.

Nargis/Sunil Dutt-Sanjay Dutt.

But yes lots of failure combos- Amitabh/Jaya Bachhan -Abishekh who got to marry Aiswarya too!

Dharmendra-Bobby but he married some tycoon's daughter and is very rich.

Shammi and Shashi kapoor's kids did not make it.

Dimple and Rajesh kids-but Twinke married Akshay and is living high life!

Sharmila Tagore-though Saif is not a failure, but his sister didn't make it.

Mahesh Batt-Aliya mad eit and so did Pooja for a bit, but his son -wasn't he accused of being a terrorist.

Rajendra Kumar-one hit wonder son, married Sanjay's siter.

Hema Malini kids and probably Sridevi kids -nothing looks wise-hema's kids married and settled with families. Hoepfully Sridevi's kids do the same and not end up liek Boney's first two kids.

Rekha never had any kids-her father was a famous southern superstar-gemini ganesan though.

All the original Khan kids-Sanjay/Feroze khan etc never made it. Susanne married and divorced Hirthik.

Manoj Kumar and Dev Anand-nobody knows about their kids and one wonders if Dilip Kumar had any kids.

I feel that if parent is successful kids get everything on platter. So they do not work as hard as their parents.

Second reason is comparing with the father or mother we judge their acting skills. Even if they are 10% less than parent we will start saying "What a bad actor or actress". While a outsider may be equally bad but since he has no parents/grand parents to compare with they are praised even for less talent. Like Salman khan or hrithik , both are bad actors but since their parents were never actors so we say "what great actor, what talent" etc. But if Amitabh Bachchan son Abhishekh or Dharmendras son Bobby Deol for example act better than Salman/Saif/Hrithik but we say "what a bad actor, what a lousy acting" etc and start rejecting them from first/second movie only. Because we are comparing them to their parents who were super star actors. But what we forget is if Amitabh Bachachan never got Zanjeer and Deewar he would be another abhishek bachchan only of 70s. And if dhramendra had not got all those great movies from guru dutt bandini to sholay etc he would be another bobby deol or worst. Because Dhamendra does not know much emoting anyways. But we are biased audience keep comparing with past and give our verdict.

Third reason for not doing well is, camps in bollywood and past rivalary play roles in a person getting successful or flop. Like Bobby Deol his brother Sunny fought with Yash raj, so yash raj and dharma movies did not take bobby in their movies. After 95 these two banners dominated. So if you are not in good terms because your elder bro fought with them you will be over looked for roles in their banner (similar to what sushant faced). So bobby was boycotted by the two most successful banners. He had no choice to do good movies.

Fourth Hrithik survived because of father Rakesh being director. Bobby and Abhishekh had no such luck. No father to make tailor made roles if films 6 films flop or 10 films flop. Hrithik lucked out there.

Audience had various choices in 90s all good looking and dashing men. After 2000s hardly a good looking actor has come one hrithik one ranbir kapoor. So when competition low easy to get noticed after 2000s. Now only tiger is there and karthik aryan. That time list of good looking actors was very big salman, amir, saif, bobby,arjun rampal, milind soman, john, dino, upen, jas arora, etc too many good looking men so that could not be usp like for hrithik or ranbir. If Hrithik or ranbir debuted in 1990s he may have flopped like many good looking ones did than.

In 90s people were not so crazy after looks i guess. It was more acting chops that attracted audience to theatres unlike now how tiger, hrithik, ranbir use looks to attract audience to unberabale movies or average movies. Audience had better taste in choice of movies to watch

Two of the three biggest grossers(adjusted) of all time are by a father-son duo.

1) Sholay- Dharmendra

2) HAHK

3) Gadar- Sunny Deol

Theres also

Raj- Rishi- Ranbir

Sunil Dutt- Sanjay Dutt

Jackie Shroff- Tiger Shroff

The theory holds no relevance!