It’s hard to imagine now, given his superstar status, but there was a time when Salman Khan couldn’t land a single film despite delivering one of the biggest hits of Bollywood. His debut film Maine Pyaar Kiya remains one of the most iconic movies of his career and played a huge role in making him a star. Yet, ironically, Salman found himself without work for nearly four to six months right after the film’s massive success.
Speaking on Aap Ki Adalat, Salman Khan opened up about this rough patch. He explained that after the film released, offers simply stopped coming and it genuinely felt like nothing more would come his way. According to him, this was largely because his co-star Bhagyashree had, around that time, made up her mind to leave acting altogether and get married instead.
Here is the video clip:
Blast from Past: When Salman Khan admitted he had no work for 6 months after Maine Pyar Kiya because the main credit was given to Bhagyashree, so his dad Salim Khan had to step in to save his son's career and a fake announcement was made in a trade magazine of Salman being signed by a big producer.
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He went on to say that once she got married, she ended up taking all the credit that typically goes toward a film’s success, walking away with the recognition while people in the industry started viewing him as insignificant, as though he hadn’t really contributed to the film’s success at all.
That’s when his father, veteran writer Salim Khan, stepped in with a clever plan to revive his son’s career. Salman Khan recalled that his father reached out to producer-director G.P. Sippy and asked him for a favor, since the two had worked together extensively in the past, he requested Sippy to make some kind of public announcement about signing Salman for a film, purely to create buzz and signal that Salman was still in demand.
Soon after, a trade magazine carried the news that G.P. Sippy had signed Salman Khan for a project. Salman said that once this announcement was published, several people started approaching him with film offers and things gradually turned around from there. Today, of course, Salman Khan stands as one of the most popular and successful superstars in Indian cinema.
What a clever plan!
