Johnny Lever: Pen Seller to Comedy Headliner

Johnny Lever became one of Hindi cinema's best-known comedians after starting as a street performer and then a company employee who mimicked his bosses. His rise is told in his Wikipedia biography and in his own interviews, and this piece draws on both. Where they differ on dates, it says so or leaves the date out.

A Mumbai childhood

According to Wikipedia, John Prakash Rao Janumala was born on 14 August 1957 into a Telugu Christian family in Prakasam, Andhra Pradesh, and grew up in the King's Circle area of Matunga in Mumbai. He is the eldest of three sisters and two brothers, including the mimicry artist Jimmy Moses. His father worked at a Hindustan Unilever plant. Because of his family's finances he left school after seventh grade and took odd jobs, including selling pens on Mumbai's streets while mimicking film stars and dancing to their songs.

The name

During a Hindustan Unilever company function he mimicked several senior officers, and from then on, the biography says, workers called him Johnny Lever. He kept it as his screen name. In a Filmfare interview he said he began with dance, started mimicry around 17 or 18, and joined the company at 18 on a first salary of Rs 600.

Stage shows and cassettes

He performed in orchestra shows such as Tabassum Hit Parade and joined the troupe of the composers Kalyanji-Anandji. Wikipedia calls him one of the first stand-up comedians in India. He quit Hindustan Unilever in 1981 because of growing absenteeism and good stage earnings. His comedy cassette Hasi Ke Hangame brought him recognition in homes, and he made commercials for Kachua Chhap incense, directed by Shekhar Kapur. In the Filmfare interview he said the incense advertisement paid him Rs 25,000, which he contrasted with his father's retirement payout, and after it he left the company for orchestras full time. In 1986 he performed as a filler in the charity show Hope 86, which led the producer Gul Anand to offer him Jalwa, alongside Naseeruddin Shah.

Into films

Sunil Dutt noticed him at a show and offered him his first film, Dard Ka Rishta. He also appeared in Tum Par Hum Qurban, Hero Hiralal and Tezaab. His first major success was Baazigar (1993), where he played Babulal. In the Filmfare interview he said the humour in it was improvised on the spot and that the film made him famous overnight. He added that for years afterward he sometimes worked on five films in a single day. He is also remembered for characters such as Chotta Chattri and Aslam Bhai, and for a Michael Jackson impersonation at the 1999 Filmfare Awards.

Awards and reach

He has received thirteen Filmfare nominations for Best Performance in a Comic Role and won twice, for Deewana Mastana (1997) and Dulhe Raja (1998). Film counts differ across sources. The biography gives both "more than three hundred" and "more than 350" Hindi films, so this article uses neither number.

Television and other languages

He appeared in Zabaan Sambhalke (1993), had his own Zee TV show, Johny Aala Re, judged Comedy Circus in 2007 and joined the cast of Partners in 2017. He acted in the Tulu film Rang, the Tamil film Anbirkku Alavillai (2011) and the Kannada film Gara. He is president of the Mimicry Artist Association Mumbai.

A note on sources

The claims that he is "widely regarded as one of the greatest comedians in Indian cinema" and a pioneer of stand-up in India are the biography's wording, and are opinions. The dates of his early stage tours differ between sources, so none are given here.

Sources

*Cover photo: Camaal Mustafa Sikander (Lens Naayak Photography), Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).*