 Sanjay Dutt was born on July 29th 1959. He is the son of a Bollywood "Power Couple", Nargis and Sunil Dutt. Both his parents were awarded the Padmashree, a high civilian honor in India. His father Sunil Dutt was also a politician who campaigned for the Congress Party of India.
 His sister, Namrata, married actor Kumar Gaurav, the son of yesteryears Bollywood star Rajendra Kumar. His other sister Priya contested and won the election for her father's constituency and is now a Member of Parliament.
He has a daughter (by his marriage to his first wife) named Trishala who lives in New York with her grandparents and aunt. She was born on August 10, 1988 and is now 20 years old and is best known as the Paris Hilton of India, due to her extravagant spending habits, poses, and popularity. Out of all the Bollywood celebrity kids, Trishala Dutt is well known in New York City amongst the who's who, and in India.
At the age of 12 Sanjay made his first film appearance in his father's film "Reshma Aur Shera" where he had a small role as a qawali singer. He made his acting debut in the film "Rocky" in 1981 which was produced and directed by his father. Though "Rocky" was a hit it did not establish him as a star.
His mother, Nargis Dutt died a few weeks before Sanjay Dutt's first film, ¨Rocky¨, was to be released. A heartbroken Sanjay took to doing drugs. He asked help from his father, and was sent him to a rehab center in Texas. After attending a rehabilitation program in the United States, a sober Sanjay started working in films again...
He steadily began to build his career, and he had many hits such as "Vidhaata" (1982), "Naam" (1986), "Hathyar" (1989), "Sadak" (1991) and "Saajan" (1991). He was the first choice to play the lead in Subhash Ghai's "Hero", but after witnessing Sanjay Dutt in his drug phase during the shooting of "Vidhaata", Ghai picked Jackie Shroff.
 Sanjay Dutt resurrected his cinema career with movies like ¨Sadak¨ (1991) and ¨Saajan¨ (1991). He received his first Filmfare nomination for the best actor in a lead role, for the film ¨Saajan¨. His breakthrough role came in Subhash Ghai's ¨Khalnayak¨ (1993), which became a huge hit and gave his career a boost. He received a Filmfare nomination for the film.
The release of "Khalnayak" happened to coincide with Dutt's arrest in connection with the 1993 Mumbai Bombings. The hype surrounding the event and his convincing portrayal of the villainous role in the film gave his career a much needed boost . ¨Khalnayak¨ went on to become a huge hit also partly because of the use of a popular song in the film "Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai".
Sanjay retained his macho image after being released from jail and built on his steady fan following.
Over the last 10 years, he has matured as an actor, with action, gangster and comedy roles being his forte.His performances in "Vaastav" (1999), "Mission Kashmir" (2000), "Munnabhai M.B.B.S." (2003) and "Lage Raho Munnabhai" (2006) earned him rave reviews.
His performance as a gangster in "Vaastav" earned him almost all the top awards that the industry has to offer, further cementing his place as one of the best actors in the Indian Film Industry. After the success of his MunnaBhai movies, a section of the media and fans also have started to refer to him as "Munna Bhai".
After his success as an actor, Sanjay decided to try his luck in producing. He along with friend and director Sanjay Gupta (Director) formed a production company called "White Feather Films". They have produced films such as "Kaante" (2002), "Musafir" (2004) and "Zinda" (2005) of which also star Sanjay Dutt in lead roles. His release "Shootout At Lokhandwala" has done very well at the box office.
 On November 28, 2006, A special TADA court found actor Sanjay Dutt guilty under the Arms Act of possessing an illegal weapon. He was cleared, however, of the charges of terrorism and conspiracy.Dutt's bail has been extended a number of times since the ruling and is still in progress.While Sanjay was cleared of terrorism charges namely the TADA Act, one of his friends who transported the AK-56 guns for Sanjay namely Baba Chouhan was found guilty under TADA Act.
On 31 July 2007, Sanjay Dutt was sentenced to a jail term of 6 years for illegal possession of firearms acquired from terrorist acquaintances, who were responsible for the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.
On August 20, 2007, the Supreme Court of India granted him interim bail.
Now back in India, Sanjay started working even harder and with another follow up to his hit ¨Munna Bhai¨ and even more releases such as ¨Kidnap¨ and ¨Blue¨, the actor makes sure he will never be forgotten and is here to stay.
Nejla Karatas
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