Mumbai: Veteran filmmaker Baldev Raj Chopra, more commonly known as B R Chopra, passed away on Wednesday, 5 November, 2008 at 8.30 am due to old age. Chopra was 95.
The cremation will be held at 4.30 pm on Wednesday.
B R Chopra is the elder brother of Yash Chopra and father of filmmaker Ravi Chopra. He started his career as long back as 1951 when he directed and produced Afsana. In 1957, he went onto formally set up his office and production house under the name B R Films and produced Ek Hi Rasta. In 2007, B R Films completed 50 years in the industry.
Till 2003, Chopra was involved in the scripting of Baghbaan, which was directed by his son Ravi Chopra. Even though he has been wheel chair ridden since few years now, he still went to office few days a week and interacted with the staff.
Chopra was the first recipient of the National Award as Best Director for his film Humraaz in 1968. His film Dharamputra in 1962 received the National Award as the Best Hindi film and Gumrah also received the National Award for Best Film in 1963.
In an earlier interview with Businessofcinema.com, Ravi Chopra had said, "In the initial years when my father made black and white films, which I consider to be the classic years of B R Films, were really the high points, followed by Waqt (1965), Ittefaq (1969) and Mahabharat (1988). Baghban (2003) was yet another high point. What has been really nice is that my father made films with a difference, and people accepted that difference."
Recently Ravi Chopra even re-released the colour version of Naya Daur, which was directed and produced by B R Chopra in 1957.
