Yash Chopra

Yash Raj Chopra was born on September 27, 1932, in Lahore, British India. Moving to Bombay following the 1947 Partition, he apprenticed under his elder brother B.R. Chopra before making a thunderous directorial debut with 'Dhool Ka Phool' (1959) and the courageous interfaith-secular drama 'Dharmputra' (1961), followed by the revolutionary multi-starrer crime drama 'Waqt' (1965), which established the lost-and-found genre in Hindi cinema.

In 1970, Chopra founded Yash Raj Films (YRF), which grew into India's largest and most successful entertainment conglomerate. During the mid-1970s, Chopra forged Indian cinema's definitive angry young man era, directing Amitabh Bachchan in monumental masterpieces like 'Deewaar' (1975) and 'Trishul' (1978). Concurrently, Chopra created the benchmark for cinematic romance with 'Kabhi Kabhie' (1976), 'Silsila' (1981), and 'Chandni' (1989)—the latter single-handedly reviving musical romances and feminine beauty against sweeping Swiss alpine landscapes.

Across subsequent decades, Chopra directed cross-border and cross-generational classics including 'Darr' (1993), 'Dil To Pagal Hai' (1997), and the epic India-Pakistan love saga 'Veer-Zaara' (2004). Recipient of India's highest cinema honor, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (2001), and the Padma Bhushan (2005), Chopra passed away on October 21, 2012, shortly after completing his final directorial venture 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan', leaving an unparalleled legacy of romantic aesthetics and cinematic excellence.