39 Years Of Coolie: The Day Amitabh Bachchan Was Born Again

Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has done innumerable roles in his career, spanning five decades. But no one can forget his 1983 film Coolie, which was released exactly 39 years ago on December 2, 1983. The reason is not just the film’s success but for the infamous accident on the sets of the film which almost put Big B on his deathbed.

In fact, the success of this Manmohan Desai directorial was caused partly because of the accident, which had set the entire country into panic and frenzy. It all occurred during an action scene in Coolie when Amitabh Bachchan fights Puneet Issar, who played an antagonist in the film. However, due to miscalculations by both actors, Puneet landed a really strong punch on Big B’s stomach that severely injured him.

Big B suffered from internal bleeding because of the injury and had to be hospitalised. Doctors, at that time, were not sure he would survive, and the entire country almost came to a standstill, praying for the recovery of the biggest star of Hindi cinema.

According to media reports, more than 200 people had donated blood to the actor. About 60 bottles of blood were received from 200 blood donors. But fortunately, BigB recovered from this accident — however, after many years it was found that liver cirrhosis was caused due to the virus in the blood he was given. In an interview given to the media, Amitabh revealed that 25 percent of his liver has been damaged.

The editor of the film, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, paused the scene in the film where Amitabh was injured after it hit theatres as a homage to the actors. Apart from it, the ending was also changed. Initially, Amitabh Bachchan’s character was to die after getting shot by Kader Khan’s character, but Manmohan felt it would be inappropriate to show him dying after he survived a life-threatening accident in real life. So he changed the ending and BigB’s character survives in the movie.

Coolie also starred Rati Agnihotri, Waheeda Rehman and Rishi Kapoor, and was a blockbuster at the box office.

Read all the Latest Movies News here