Kiran Kumar is an Indian screen and theatre actor. He has worked in numerous Hindi, Bhojpuri and Gujarati television and film productions. His latest work in drama is Charlie 2.
Personal life
Kiran Kumar is the son of the celebrated film actor Jeevan and is married to Sushma Verma, a former actress, with whom he has two children. The son Shaurya is in the process of being launched as an actor and has worked with David Dhawan, Abbas Mustan, Indra Kumar and Imtiaz Ali as an assistant director; the daughter Srishti works in fashion as a stylist and consultant. Kiran comes from an aristocratic Kashmiri Pandit family; his great-grandfather was a nobleman who governed the Gilgit Agency as its Wazir-e-Wazarat. He is a follower of Sai Baba and has a production house named after the saint - Sainama Visions.
Career
Films
He attended Daly College, a boarding school in Indore, enrolled at R.D. National College in Bandra, Mumbai, and later joined the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. He was known as "Deepak Dhar" in Film and Television Institute of India among his friends. As a young boy, the film industry was drawn to him, partly because of his father's association with it. Kumar starred in Do Boond Pani in 1971 and went on to play the lead roles in several more movies. Kumar saw his career suffer with the release of movies like Jangal Mein Mangal, among others; however, despite this "slump", Kumar started to work in Gujarati movies, where he quickly attained a cult following, and the title "The Bachhan of Gujarati Cinema. Rakesh Roshan's Khudgarz got him back to Hindi cinema, in which negative roles in films like Tezaab and Khuda Gawah won him accolades as an antihero.
One of his first television series was with Cinevistas. He has since established himself as a Television star in the Television industry in series such as: Zindagi, Ghutan, Sahil, Manzil, Grihasti, Katha Sagar, Aur Phir ek Din, Papa, Miilee, Chhajje Chajje Ka Pyar and more. At one point he was in the process of starting a production house called Sainama Visions, for which the pilot episode of Aashiana was filmed. Recently, he has been honoured with the life membership of the International Film and Television Club of the Asian Academy of Film & Television. Currently one of the highest-paid actors on Indian TV, Kiran was last seen on the silver screen in Dharma's Brothers, along with Akshay Kumar, Jackie Shroff and Siddharth Malhotra. Before that, he played Anees Khan in Born Free Production's Bobby Jasoos. Soham Shah's next release with Sanjay DuttSher, also stars Kiran as the lead antagonist. Apart from social awareness ads and smaller independent cinema, he is actively involved in various philanthropic projects working with children's rights organisations and cancer awareness projects. He is a member of Cine and Television Artists association and its core committee. He assisted with the organization of the Star CINTAA Superstars Ka Jalwa, a televised event that brought the entire Hindi film and Television industry together to perform and raise funds for CINTAA. His credibility and professionalism are testament of his long standing innings in the Film and TV fraternity. With over 6800 episodes on TV, 550 Hindi movies and roughly 80 regional movies, in 43 years, his contribution to the entertainment industry remains rather large and all inclusive.
