Shekhar Suman

14 Jun, 1954 | Mumbai

Actor/Singer/Producer

Biography

Shekhar Suman (born June 14, 1954, India) is an Indian actor and television personality. He was born in a Kayastha family in Bihar. His actual date of birth has been disputed to be much earlier than quoted. His school 'Patliputra School' has produced documents to indicate that he was born in 1954. He started his career as a television actor in a serial Wah Janab. He moved on to films but did not enjoy much success as an actor. He film debut was in Shashi Kapoor's Utsav. Although his performance was appreciated by the critics, the movie was a commercial failure. Shekhar has acted in almost 30 films. However none of his films have come even close to a commercial success. He was out of the Indian entertainment scenario for quite a while. During this period he was almost entirely supported by his wife, Alka (Kapoor), whom he married on May 4, 1984 after a two year courtship. They have a son, Adhyayan. The couple lost their eldest son, Aayush, in whose memory Shekhar is constructing a hospital in Patna. He returned to Television in 1993 in Dekh Bhai Dekh, as Sameer, and also affectionately called "Chachu" (Hindi translation: father's younger brother) by the kids. A very successful comedy show, Dekh Bhai Dekh was aired on Doordarshan TV channel in the early 1990s. Almost simultaneously, he also starred in another TV serial Reporter. He has had a low success ratio as a TV actor, hosting a few quiz shows, stand up comedy shows and game shows. Despite several attempts at reinventing himself, he has experienced success only twice in his television career, namely 'Movers and Shakers' and 'The Great Indian Laughter Challenge'. Movers and Shakers went off air after a spat between shekhar and the Sony Entertainment Network. He later tried to make a come back with other similar shows like 'Simply Shekhar', but they failed to match the success of MNS. Simply Shekhar went off air after a member of parliament turned up at the sets to protest certain caustic remarks made by shekhar on his show. He has been surrounded by a lot of controversy for making offensive remarks on politicians, senior bollywood actors and film makers. Several members of the Indian film fraternity united in protest when Shekhar made an objectionable remark on Shakti Kapoor (a long time veteran of the indian film industry). His talk shows were Movers and Shakers on the Sony Entertainment Network and Simply Shekar on Zee Television. They were primarily modeled on and adapted from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He until February 2006 hosted The Great Indian Comedy Show on Star One for sometime plus doing some episodes for Dial One aur Jeeto on Sahara TV. In the past also he has done some quiz shows like Bid Bid Boom on Zee Television and He-Man on Star One. He also hosts a show on Star News, Poll Khol (which ambiguously means 'uncovering' in Hindi) in which he speculates humorously over the current political scenario in India. Apart from this, he is one of the judges of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge along with Navjot Singh Sidhu, a former cricketer. This programme, a stand-up comedy contest is the first of its kind on Indian television. However Shekhar was shown the door after the end of the second season due to differences with Navjot Singh Sidhu. He was replaced by Shatrughan Sinha (former bollywood actor, parliamentarian, minister) in the fourth season. He went ahead and became the judge of a rival comedy program 'Comedy Circus', which is one of the several shows which sprang up along the lines of T G I Laughter Challenge, to replicate its success and capitalize on the huge demand for comedy oriented television shows. Recently, he had made his debut in singing, with a music album named 'Kuch Khwaab Aise', through which he wishes to prove that he is un-doubtly a Multi-talented artist. His new album is a melodious collection of eight love ballads whose music has been composed by Aadesh Srivastava and lyrics written by Shyam Raj. It features the Brazilian and Kingfisher model - Bruna. The entire choreography, designing and direction of the music video has been done by Rajiv Goswami and the music is on T-Series. Despite all this effort the album was a commercial failure. As of 2006, he has publicly admitted to going through a mid-life crisis. It was at this point of that he got into legal trouble for illegally importing furniture into the country through an associate who was later convicted. His name even came up in a list of celebrities who had failed to pay the government for personal protection.