(Reuters) – Movie lovers, Bollywood stars and well-wishers paid their last respects to film-maker Yash Chopra on Monday, a day after he died of multiple organ failure.
Chopra, who turned 80 last month, was one of India’s iconic film-makers and was known as the “king of romance”. He also owned one of the industry’s biggest production houses and studios, Yash Raj Films, which recently ventured into Hollywood movie production as well.
Chopra’s career spanned five decades and his last film as director, “Jab Tak Hai Jaan,” Til There is Life, opens in cinemas on November 13, on the Indian festival of Diwali.
On his birthday in September, he had announced he wouldn’t direct any more films.
Chopra was diagnosed with dengue fever last week and had been treated at a Mumbai hospital.
Tributes poured in from fans and the film industry as people thronged to pay their respects at the offices of Yash Raj Films in suburban Mumbai.
“My mind is filled with hundreds of private and personal moments that we all spent together during this large association with him,” actor Amitabh Bachchan, who worked on several films with Chopra, wrote in a blog post.
Born in 1932 in Lahore, now in Pakistan, Chopra was favored by leading Indian actors, with his movies seen as a sure-fire way to become a hit with audiences.
“They shall ever remain stored within us and like all other memories shall give value and belief to what we shared together,” Bachchan added.
(Reporting By Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Elaine Lies)