Amol Palekar is an Indian actor, film director and theatre personality, widely regarded as one of the most distinctive performers of Hindi and Marathi cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. Known for portraying soft-spoken, middle-class urban characters, he became a symbol of the "common man" in parallel and middle-of-the-road Hindi cinema, particularly through his collaborations with director Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee.
| Full name | Amol Palekar |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 November 1944, Bombay (now Mumbai), Maharashtra |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Education | Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay |
| Occupation | Actor, film director, theatre director, painter |
| Languages of work | Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada |
| Spouse | Chitra Palekar (former), Sandhya Gokhale |
| Active since | 1967 (theatre); 1971 (cinema) |
Amol Palekar was born in Bombay into a Marathi-speaking family. He trained as a painter at the Sir J. J. School of Art and held exhibitions of his paintings before moving into the performing arts. He began his career in Marathi experimental theatre in the late 1960s, working with Satyadev Dubey, and later founded his own theatre group, Aniket, in 1972.
Palekar was associated with the Marathi avant-garde theatre movement and worked extensively with playwrights such as Vijay Tendulkar, Badal Sircar and C. T. Khanolkar. His work in experimental theatre preceded his entry into films and continued to influence his choices as a screen actor and director.
He made his film debut in Basu Chatterjee's Marathi-Hindi crossover work, with his Hindi breakthrough coming in Rajnigandha (1974), directed by Basu Chatterjee. He went on to star in a series of acclaimed middle-cinema films, including:
He also appeared in significant Marathi films such as Akriet, and worked in Bengali cinema with Satyajit Ray's son Sandip Ray and others, as well as in Malayalam and Kannada films.
Palekar turned to direction in the 1980s. His directorial works include:
His direction is noted for engaging with unconventional themes, including gender identity, sexuality and folk narrative.
He directed and presented television serials in the late 1980s and 1990s, including Kachchi Dhoop (Doordarshan), Naqab and Paool Khuna.
Palekar has been an outspoken voice on issues of artistic freedom and censorship in India. He challenged provisions of the Cinematograph Act in court, seeking reforms in the functioning of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). In 2019, his speech at an event at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Mumbai, in which he criticised changes in the gallery's curatorial structure, drew national attention to questions of institutional autonomy in the arts.
Palekar was earlier married to filmmaker and writer Chitra Palekar, with whom he has a daughter, Shalmalee Palekar. He later married lawyer and screenwriter Sandhya Gokhale, who has co-written several of his later films.
Palekar's screen persona helped define the "middle cinema" of the 1970s, a strand of Hindi filmmaking situated between mainstream commercial cinema and the New Indian Cinema movement. His everyman portrayals offered an alternative to the angry-young-man archetype dominant in the same period, and his subsequent work as a director and public commentator has placed him among the senior figures of Indian art cinema.