Dharmendra (1935-2025) | ‘He’s a man’s man with the soul of a poet’: Vivaan Shah | Bollywood News

Dharam ji’s spirit will shine through the centuries, illuminating his powerful work that will stand like monuments in our collective memory. He is, after all, one of the founding pillars of our cinema. And we couldn’t have asked for a stronger buniyaad. He is like the great Himalayas, our Sphinx: elemental, a towering force, a volcano, a raging sea, a brooding sky and a calm meadow.

He was our symbol of strength, courage and determination. When Dharam ji stood up to the villains, against injustice, with all the sound and fury of the ages it was cathartic. His greatest performances are operatic, as well as gentle and tender. In that sense, in the West, he has no real parallel, someone like Clark Gable comes to mind, but he was closer to the coolness and silent smoulder of Robert Mitchum or Richard Burton. With the poetry of machismo to be found in such reats as Gary Cooper, Charles Bronson, Kirk Douglas and Victor Mature — he was an almost Hemingwayesque figure. A man’s man but with the soul of a poet. He was an actor of Shakespearean proportions and an icon of action and drama.