Jeetendra aka Jeetender (born April 7, 1942) is a popular Indian actor.
Born Ravi Kapoor in Mumbai, India, he started in Bollywood in the late 1950s when filmmaker V. Shantaram gave him a chance as Sandhya's double in Navrang (1959), but got his first big break when Shantaram cast him as hero in Geet Gaya Pattharon Ne (1964). Since then, he has appeared in almost 200 films.
Jeetendra came into the spotlight in 1967 with Ravikant Nagaich's Farz, which went on to become a golden jubilee success. The tee shirt and white shoes he picked up from a retail store for the "Mast Baharon Ka Main Aashiq" number in Farz (sung by Mohammed Rafi) became his trademark. His vigorous dancing in films like Farz, Humjoli (1970), and Caravan (1971) won him the epithet of the Jumping Jack. His films consistently achieved commercial success, even though the critics panned a lot of them.
In the 1980s, Jeetendra was frequently paired up with Sridevi or Jayapradha for remakes of South Indian potboilers courtesy of K. Bapayya and K. Raghavendra Rao; some of these films were produced by Padmalaya Productions. Featuring elaborate sequences with colorful clay pots, dozens of extras, electronic music by Bappi Lahiri, and lyrics by Indeewar that were full of double entendres, movies like Justice Chaudhry (1982), Mawaali (1983), Himmatwala (1983), and Tohfa (1984) were huge hits despite low critical acclaim.
Jeetendra is married to Shobha Kapoor, and has a son Tusshar Kapoor, who is also an actor, and a daughter, Ekta Kapoor, a film producer who runs Balaji Telefilms. They make popular TV serials in Hindi, Tamil, and other languages. They have also produced five Bollywood films, two of which have Tusshar in the leading role. Jeetendra made a brief appearance in one of his daughter's films Kucch To Hai in 2002.
He recently made an appearance in a popular TV serial Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi as an old man.