The recent news to do the rounds is of Adnan Sami turning hero with Bela Sehgal's new movie. This is not the first time that a singer or a music director or a cricketer has turned towards acting. However, a deep study of the career swaps done by celebrities from different fields to acting has always proved to be a huge 'flop' or blunder for the concerned person.
It all started with wrestler Dara Singh who turned hero with 'Ud Chala Jatayu' in 1949. Dara Singh is the only sportsperson to hold his own among Bollywood Superstars all these years and has had a successful movie career not only in Hindi but also in Punjabi movies. He also played the role of Lord Hanuman in the television series Ramayan telecasted on Doordarshan in the mid eighties. However other sportsperson who followed his footsteps like Sunil Gavaskar, Sandeep Patil, Vinod Kambli, Ajay Jadeja etc were hooted out by the general public as they were not able to visualize or digest their favourite sportsman running around trees behind the heroines. These cricketers are worshipped on the cricket pitch however the moment they donned greasepaint public showed them a thumbs down.
Similarly we also saw singers like Shailendra Singh, Shaan, Sonu Nigam, Palash Sen and Himesh Reshammiya turning into actors with limited or no success. Himesh Reshammiya after the fluke hit 'Aap Ka Suroor' risked his singing and music composing career for acting but all his other subsequent movies like Karzzz, Radio and Kajrare turned out to be box office turkeys. The only exception to the rule was the Late Kishore Kumar who was a successful actor and singer.
The same was with models who deserted the ramp shows for movies only to fall flat. It was always believed by the industry people that models are wooden and they cannot act untill Juhi Chawla, Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, John Abraham and Arjun Rampal proved them wrong with their acting and box office successes. Right now modelling is considered as the first step towards stardom and Priyanka Chopra, Lara Dutta, Dia Mirza, Upen Patel etc are proof to the same.
Now the latest entrants to Bollywood are boxer Vijendra Singh and Tennis player Leander Paes who are working in couple of movies. Now lets see if history repeats itself or if these guys can break the jinx which will lead more players to enter Tinseltown.
