I&B Minister Manish Tewari hands over Phalke award to Pran

New Delhi, May 11: Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari handed over the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema, to legendary Bollywood actor Pran at his residence in Mumbai on Friday.

Pran, 93, could not make it to the 60th National Film Awards ceremony held in New Delhi last week for health reasons.

It is probably for the first time that an artiste was given the Phalke award at his home. The brief ceremony was telecast live.
"It's a great honour to present the honour to Pran saab. His contribution to the Indian cinema has been huge and the greatness of the award gets bigger after honouring Pran with Dadasaheb Phalke," Tewari told reporters at Pran's residence.

Pran is known for acting in over 400 movies in a career spanning over six decades and played a vast range of roles - from a hero to a villain to a character artist.

Starting as hero, Pran's popularity rose after he played ruthless villains in hits like "Madhumati", "Ziddi" and "Ram Aur Shyam". The success of the films made him a symbol of villainy in Hindi filmdom.

But he was not only good at portraying evil characters on the screen. He wowed his fans and touched their heartstrings when he stepped into character roles as loveable Malang Chacha in "Upkar".

Later, he thoroughly entertained as street-smart fraud in "Victoria No.203", epitomised on-screen friendship as Pathan in "Zanjeer" and not to forget his role of a grieving father who struggles to establish a rapport with his dead son's children in "Parichay".

Apart from Pran's family members, well-known filmmaker Karan Johar's mother Hiroo Johar was present at his residence for the ceremony. TV and film actor Vishal Malhotra was also seen there.