FLASHBACK – M! Real Scandal: Hema Malini And Dharmendra

21 July 2016
The Hema-Dharam love story had all the ingredients of a B’wood potboiler
How the love story began
Secret Trysts
Hunky Dharam and beautiful Hema fell in love on the sets of Tum Haseen Main Jawan. He was already married but that didn’t stop him from wooing her. Though she was attracted to him, Hema didn’t reciprocate initially as she didn’t want to get involved with a married man. It was only on the sets of Sholay that she finally gave in to his charms. The story goes that Dharam paid the light boys two dirhams to disturb a scene in which he teaches Hema (Basanti) to use a revolver so that he could hold her several times under the pretext of ‘retakes’. He ended up shelling out nearly Dhs150!
Dharam wasn’t the only one
Her Several Other Suitors
Hema also had other suitors who were besotted with her. First in line was Sanjeev Kumar who was so madly in love with her that he reportedly decided to remain single when she chose Dharam over him. Apparently, the actors tried to outdo each other to win her affections. Insiders say Dharam was keen to play Gabbar in Sholay while Sanjeev was to play Veeru. But when Dharam realised that Veeru would romance Basanti he insisted on changing his role! The story took an interesting turn with the entry of a fourth character. Apparently, Sanjeev convinced Jeetendra (who was working with Hema) to champion his cause. But in the process Jeetu too fell for the dream girl! What’s more, Hema, whose relationship with Dharam was going through a rough patch because of his reluctance to commit, responded to Jeetu’s overtures! In her biography, Hema Malini: The Authorised Biography, the actress maintains that Jeetendra and she almost got married.
Who backed out at the last moment from the Jeetendra-Hema relationship?
Their link-up took place before either of them finally tied the knot. Jeetu and Hema were having problems with their respective love lives. Hema, who was seeing Dharamendra, was upset that he was not committing to her (as he was already married to Prakash Kaur). Similarly, Shobha and Jeetu were going through their own ups and downs. Jeetu was quite fond of Hema. The actress allegedly even told Dharam that she would marry Jeetu if he wasn’t going to commit to her. Jeetu and Hema even went so far as to plan their wedding and reached Tirupati with their parents for the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Shobha, who had waited for nearly a decade to marry Jeetu hastily went to Dharam and told him that they needed to stop the wedding. The two of them flew down to Tirupati and in true filmi style the Hema-Jeetu union was stopped! The story is somewhat different in Hema’s biography where she claims that she backed out of the wedding literally at the altar because she got cold feet. However, if Dharam hadn’t acted at the right moment, Jeetu and Hema would probably have been married today.
Who was Hema’s mother trying to get her hitched to?   Write you answer in the comments below.