SHASHI KAPOOR, a scion of a legendary Bollywood family who started acting as a child and became a box-office star and successful film producer, was named Monday to receive the highest honor in Indian cinema.

    The Dada Saheb Phalke Award will be given to Kapoor for making an outstanding contribution to Indian cinema.

    The 77-year-old actor has acted in more than 160 films. His father, siblings and children have all had success in India’s Mumbai-based film industry.

    Between the 1960s and late 1990s, Kapoor gathered an enormous fan following as the charming and handsome leading man in a string of Hindi-language films. Some of his big box-office successes were “Deewar,” “Jab Jab Phool Khile,” “Sharmilee,” and “Satyam Shivam Sundaram.”

    He has acted in several English-language films, including many movies by the film producer-director duo, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. These included “The Householder,” “Heat and Dust,” “In Custody,” “Bombay Talkie,” “Shakespearewala” and “Side Streets.”

    In 1988, he acted with Pierce Brosnan in “The Deceivers.”

    As a producer, he has made such hits as “Junoon,” “Kalyug,” “36 Chowringhee Lane” and “Utsav.”

    Kapoor’s father, Prithviraj, and his elder brother, Raj, were awarded the Phalke award in 1971 and 1987, respectively.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Kapoor and in a tweet described him as “a fine actor and a stalwart of the film industry.”(SD-Agencies)