Acres of Star Power

 STARDOM IS EPHEMERAL but real estate is forever. In Bollywood, the richest people are not necessarily the biggest stars. It is those who made wise invest­ments who last the longest. Case in point is Shakti Kapoor, who was advised early in his career by co-star Mithun Chakraborty to buy homes. The actor who spent much of his career playing a villain started with a loan of ₹7 lakh to buy a flat, and ended up own­ing the whole building. Most recently, he sold a home for ₹6 crore and bought another for ₹6 crore, with his daughter, Shraddha, now a big star.

In the dream factory of Bollywood, where every Friday can change one’s bank balance forever, only a real estate asset is forever, and sometimes not even that. When Mera Naam Joker was released after six years in the making, it set Raj Kapoor back by ₹56 lakh, a vast sum in 1971. As his son Rishi Kapoor once said, Raj Kapoor had to mortgage his studio and all his assets because of it. It was only when Bobby, made with new stars for ₹1.25 crore, made money did the family urge Raj to buy a house.

But then many in that generation of actors considered filmmaking to be an art, not commerce. Raj Kapoor famously scoffed at traders who valued box-office success over artistic acclaim, even dub­bing his brother Shashi Kapoor a taxi for hire, because he worked on multiple shifts. Raj Kapoor’s profitable 100-acre farm near Pune was constantly in use as his major outdoor location. And Shashi sold his land in Panvel to help pay for his first production, Junoon.

Raj Kapoor’s colleague, Dilip Kumar, declined advertisement despite the blan­dishments. “Hum ishtaharon ke liye nahin bane hai (I am not made for advertise­ments).” As for Dev Anand, also part of the famous trio, he invested everything he had into his movies.

Not for them the frenetic wealth accumulation one sees in contempo­rary Hindi cinema, where actors have become businessmen rather than pure artists. There are many sources, from as­tronomical movie fees to brand endorse­ments. And even if movies fail at the box office, brand endorsements usually last longer, subsidising many careers (and also killing creativity) as adman Prasoon Pandey once said.

But things changed with successive generations. Seeing the fate of actors such as Bharat Bhushan who lost much of his money on his home productions and had to live out his days in a modest two-bedroom house in Malad and Bhagwan, who despite several hits, had to go back to live in the chawl from where he began his career, many actors learnt a valuable financial lesson. Invest in real estate. When Bhushan incurred losses on his films, he sold three bungalows in Pali Hill and Bandra Link Road, and Pune.

Superstars of the 1970s built or bought sea-facing mansions which became synonymous with them. Amitabh Bachchan’s Pra­teeksha in Juhu and Rajesh Khanna’s Aashirwad on Bandstand, Bandra, bought from another star Rajendra Kumar, held them in good stead in the worst of times. When Bachchan’s entertain­ment company, ABCL, collapsed under mismanagement and accumulated a debt of around ₹90 crore, there were 55 legal cases against him. His personal assets, including his bungalow Prateek­sha, were at risk of being attached and seized, till the late Subrata Roy stepped in to save him. Khanna was so attached to Aashirwad that though he was told to sell it by several advisers to replenish his savings, he retained it, even refusing an offer from actor Salman Khan who lives nearby in Galaxy Apartments. Only to see it being sold by his family for ₹90 crore after his death.

Shah Rukh Khan often calls himself the last of the superstars and if his bun­galow is anything to go by, he is. The sea-facing heritage bungalow, which Shah Rukh bought in 2001, was named Villa Vienna and owned by Nariman Dubash. The house was built by Raja Bijai Sen of Mandi in the late-1800s for one of his queens, and purchased in 1915 by Perin Manickji Batliwala.

Land assets are the last to go when a film family loses its larger purpose. Take the case of the Kapoor family who sold RK Studios to Godrej Properties for an undisclosed amount. Raj Kapoor had founded RK Studios (RKS) on 2.2 acres in Chembur in 1948. After buying it over, the Godrej RKS said it would develop 33,000 square metres of modern residential apartments of various con­figurations and a luxury retail experi­ence. History is being transformed into real estate in other sales. Filmistan, built by Sasadhar Mukherjee, has been sold to Arcade Developers for ₹183 crore and turned into a high-end residential property. Earlier, the Kamalistan Studio, which once produced such iconic mov­ies like Pakeezah and Mahal, was sold to DB Realty and RMZ Corp.

The nature of film business is uncer­tain. Sometimes movies can get held up for years, and reduce families to near-penury. Aamir Khan remembers a period in his childhood when his family could not pay its bills because his father Tahir Hussain’s film Locket was stuck for eight years as actors were not giving him dates.

BOLLYWOOD’S WOMEN have not always had the good fortune of landing on their feet after decades of working in the film industry. Madhu­bala, infamously, was a prisoner of her father’s autocratic decision-making. After her death in 1969, most of her possessions were dispensed with by her father Attaullah Khan, including Kismet Bungalow in Bandra. Love versus money was one of the constant dilemmas in her life, leading to a very public legal showdown between BR Chopra and her father over Madhubala’s role in Naya Daur (1957). Her father refused to let her shoot outdoor which was a requirement of the film, which starred her longtime paramour Dilip Kumar.

Her contemporary Meena Kumari’s life was as tragic, with her assets tied to that of her husband filmmaker Kamal Amrohi (whom she married twice). She and Amrohi purchased a 2.5-acre plot in Bandra’s Pali Hill in 1959, which was later leased to a housing society in 1966. A recent court ruling ordered the society to vacate the land due to non-payment of rent, and the land is now the subject of a decades-long dispute involving Amrohi’s son from his first wife, Tajdar. Meena Kumari’s Bandra bungalow was sold at her insistence to actor Mumtaz to help fund the former’s last film with her, Gomti Ke Kinare.

Women who followed them, like Rekha and Hema Malini, made sure to retain their homes. Rekha’s home on Bandstand, Basera, and Hema Malini’s bungalow in Juhu, Advitya, are well-known Mumbai landmarks.Modern-day female actors have learnt their financial lessons well. Many have hefty brand endorsements and investments, not merely in real estate but also in businesses. They also charge for private appearances. Take Katrina Kaif, who was one of the first to invest in Nykaa. Her initial investment in 2018 of approximately ₹2.4 crore grew significantly after the company’s IPO, to about ₹22 crore. She also set up her own brand, Kay Beauty, in partnership with Nykaa in 2019. Along with her acting fees, she is said to be worth ₹224 crore.

Ditto with her contemporary Deepika Padukone. The actor launched 82°E in 2022, a premium, direct-to-con­sumer skincare and self-care brand that combines modern science with ancient wellness practices. KA Enterprises, her family office, has investments in a series of startups, such as food company Epigamia, ride-hailing service BluSmart, energy efficiency enterprise Atomberg Technologies, furniture rental company Furlenco, online beauty retailer Purplle, and technology company Bellatrix. Along with her mental wellness NGO, The Live Love Laugh Foundation; her acting fees; and her brand endorse­ments, she is a woman of consider­able means. It is a model followed by younger women such as Alia Bhatt.

Even less established women such as Parul Gulati are following this. Gulati started a hair extension busi­ness called Nish Hair, which is now worth ₹50 crore. Mona Singh started her own Mumbai restaurant recently, Kona Kona, following in the footsteps of Shilpa Shetty who is a co-founder of the popular Mumbai restaurant, Bastian—her investments seem to be separate from her husband, controver­sial businessman Raj Kundra, currently involved in a ₹60-crore cheating case.

The one man who has managed to mix art and commerce with clarity is Shah Rukh Khan, who was rated recently as the country’s richest actor, with a valu­ation of ₹12,490 crore on the Hurun India Rich List 2025. His wealth comes from his production house Red Chillies Entertain­ment, Indian Premier League cricket team Kolkata Knight Riders, and invest­ments in companies such as the media-tech firm Mythik and Anand Pandit’s real estate firm, Sri Lotus Developers.

His real estate portfolio extends from Mannat in Mumbai to Jannat in Dubai, and he has always said while he does movies for love, his endorsements are mercenary.

It was real estate which helped Sunil Dutt in the difficult period when his son Sanjay was accused under the TADA Act. He had to sell the land on which his Pali Hill bungalow, Ajanta, was built.

More recently, Kangana Ranaut sold her bungalow located in Pali Hill, Bandra, for ₹32 crore. Ranaut had origi­nally purchased the bungalow in 2017 for ₹20.7 crore.

Fans may desert you, films may flop, and even family can abandon you. But real estate will always love you back.