Dharmendra died on 24 November. A wave of sadness has spread throughout Bollywood and fans. 89 year old Dharmendra was an actor who had dominated Bollywood for the last 65 years. His fan following never decreased. He also did films ranging from Baby Boomer to Millennial and then Gen G’s taste.

Dharmendra has as many hit films as today’s superstars Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan do not have. He always remained among the most favorite actors, despite this he never got the status of superstar. Whereas his films did wonders at the box office. His hold on all three genres – romantic, action and comedy was very strong. But there were some reasons which prevented him from getting the title of superstar.

There were many reasons for this, like sometimes the era of Rajesh Khanna, sometimes the era of Amitabh Bachchan, sometimes many flops together and sometimes the absence of a solo film despite being a blockbuster and superhit. Let’s take a look at all the reasons.

Why Dharmendra could not become a superstar
Dharmendra did more than 300 films in his career. He gave 64 hit films in his career. Even Shahrukh and Salman do not have so many hit films. Shahrukh has 35 films, Salman has 38 and Amitabh Bachchan has 57 films. Rajesh Khanna has a total of 42 hit films.

• Despite this, Dharmendra could not become a superstar because when he came, Dilip Kumar had this title. Then this tag shifted to Rajesh Khanna and soon after that to Amitabh Bachchan.
• Despite giving many hits in the 70s, most of his films were multi-starrers. That means he had very few solo hits during this period. These films included films like Dharam Veer, Chacha-Bhatija, Sholay, Yaadon Ki Baaraat and Mera Gaon Mera Desh. During this time Amitabh Bachchan was giving solo hits.
• There are more flops in Dharmendra’s career than there are hits in his career. After Mithun Chakraborty, he became the actor with the most flops in Bollywood. He had 150 flop films in his account.

• Apart from this, B grade films also became a hindrance in Dharmendra getting the title of superstar. In the 90s, he was doing B grade films one after the other. He was getting money from all the films like Loha and Jallad No. 1, but stardom was going away. By then new faces like Shahrukh had achieved superstardom. Who had become a new competitor for Dharmendra.
• In the late 90s, Dharmendra started playing character roles in films like Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya and that period continues till now. Because of this Dharmendra could never get superstardom. However, the number of people who liked him was in crores, which has kept him a superstar in the hearts of people till date.