Film actor Dharmendra is known to be famous as one of the first Action Hero in Bollywood. Film journalists titled him as ‘Garam Dharam’. There is a story behind this title given to the Actor.
In the 70’s Dharmendra and Hema Malini’s romance off screen was at its peak. Every film magazine would carry a news item on their romance and their photographs together and Dharmendra already being a married man, these stories created problems in his married life. Many a times Dharmendra conveyed to the journalist that they can write about him, his films but not his personal life should not be interfered. However, to sell their magazines, the news reporters did not stop printing hot sizzling news that would sell their film magazines. M.R Krishna was one such film journalist who wrote in the gossip columns for the famous Cine Blitz magazine and was known as ‘ Off Camera’. In this column, Krishna went ahead and printed about Dharmendra and Hema Malini romance. This enraged Dharmendra and he was after Krishna’s life. It so happened, for the 1978 cyclone relief, top Bollywood stars came forward in trucks going around the Mumbai city asking for help in every way for the victims. Dharmendra was also one of them and to cover this grand event, film journalist Cine Blitz M.R. Krishna was also there.
Suddenly Dharmendra’s eyes fell on him, the actor was already very enraged about his personal life being on print. The actor was driving the truck and he hit the journalist and injured the journalist head. He got down and went on hitting the journalist till he was on the floor lying in a pool of blood. Dharmendra was that furious!. The police who were around were watching this scene, did not have the guts to come forward and stop the actor Dharmendra seeing him in rage. Finally, when his temper cooled down, he himself went to the police station to surrender for his attack on the journalist, while the film journalist was admitted to the hospital and he took treatment for a week to recover. After which the journalists were very careful what they wrote about the actor. Krishna stopped writing about Dharmendra. This entire news was published as front page in ‘Times of India’ with Krishna’s pictures with bandages was also published along with. After this incident the film journalists titled Dharmendra as ‘ Garam Dharam’!
