Karishma Kapoor is a well known and loved Bollywood actor of the 90’s era. She was only 17 when she made her debut with Prem Qaidi in 1991 opposite Harish. Just next year, that is, 1992, 6 films with Karishma as the lead actor were released. Then in 1993, 5 and in 1994, a surprising number of 9 films of Karishma were released and by the time it was 1996, the number of movies per year went up to 10 !
Only at the age of only 22, she became a well-established actor in the Bollywood industry. But why did people love her so much and what was the reason behind such massive success? First reason, of course is that she belongs from the Kapoor family. She’s the daughter of Babita Kapoor and Randhir Kapoor, so it was easier for her to make it into the big industry.
But then too, she worked day and night just to make her own name, and in which she did become successful as most of her movies, from ‘Raja Babu’, ‘Hero No. 1’, ‘Dil To Pagal Hai’ to ‘Raja Hindustani’, were all super hits of that time. She did films with Govinda, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn and many more actors. You pick up any 5 movies from the 90’s and minimum 2 would have Karishma as the lead actor in it. That was how popular she was back then.
But then why did she start getting lesser number of films which ultimately made her leave Bollywood all of a sudden? Then reason being that by the time she was not even 30, people started sidelining her as more young actresses had started debuting. And the ideology of the industry back then was very different as that is today. People used to prefer young and single actresses in the lead role, as they were more appealing than the older ones. So, till it was the year 2001, the number of films Karishma as the lead became lesser and started going flop. In 2002, all of the 3 films she did were a flop.
Then in 2003, her film ‘Baaz: A Bird In Danger’ was the only one she did, which was also a flop one. And in the same year, a news came out that she was marrying Sanjay Kapur. She was 29 at that time and because Bollywood preferred casting unmarried actresses, for the next 3 years after her marriage, she wasn’t seen in any film. Then she made a comeback in 2006 with ‘Mere Jeevan Saathi’ alongside Akshay Kumar, but again, the movie didn’t work well. It was after this movie that Karishma left Bollywood for long.
Only once did she try making another comeback with ‘Dangerous Ishhq’ in 2012, but it again didn’t work out for her. So that was it for her acting career as any movie with her in the lead role hasn’t released ever since. She has only made special appearances and judged some TV shows.
She divorced her husband in 2016 and lives with her kids Samaira Kapoor and Kiaan Raj Kapoor. At the end, the number of films of Karishma that went flop are nothing compared to her superhit ones, and somewhere her fans are still hopeful that someday she might make another comeback and show her talent again on the big screen.
