The first time Hema Malini saw Dharmendra wasn’t on a set lit for romance but during the interval of a K A Abbas film premiere. She was still the new, luminous face everyone was talking about. He was already the kind of man who made other men glance twice in the mirror before entering a room. Broad shoulders, movie-star jawline, and the kind of old-school manners that could make you forget what you were about to say. When he laid eyes on her, she overheard him tell Shashi Kapoor in Punjabi, “Kudi badi changi hai” (The girl is quite pretty).

Their first meeting on set came soon after. In 1970, when they were cast together in Tum Haseen Main Jawan, Dharmendra’s interest became impossible to miss. By her own admission, she turned him down more times than she could count and each time he came back, a little more charming, a little more insistent. The pursuit was relentless. Dharmendra had a reputation.

Before Hema entered the frame, Dharmendra’s name had already floated through the gossip columns, mostly with Meena Kumari. In the early phase of his career, he was rumoured to share more than just screen chemistry with the legendary actress. Their closeness became a talking point during a difficult period in Meena Kumari’s personal life.

Dharmendra, however, always downplayed it: “I was not in love with Meena Kumari. She was a huge star and I was her fan. If you call the relationship between a fan and a star as love, then consider it as love.” Their first film Phool Aur Patthar turned him into a star.

But this was different. This was the Dream Girl. Through the ’70s, they became an unbeatable on-screen pair. Seeta Aur Geeta, Jugnu, Raja Rani, Sholay, Azad… each film added to the idea of Dharam and Hema. The more the rumours of an off-screen romance swirled, the more their on-screen draw seemed to grow and more the gossip pages feasted on it.

For Hema, it wasn’t an easy love story to step into. Her mother, Jaya Chakravarthy, kept a close watch on her — from film sets to public appearances — and Hema never questioned it. Until Dharmendra came along. The otherwise compliant Hema was suddenly ready to fight the world for a man who, in her words, made her happy “I just knew that he made me happy. And all I wanted was happiness,” she said in the biography, Hema Malini: Beyond The Dream Girl.

In May 1980, the curtain lifted. The two were married away from the flashbulbs without the press getting wind. But it wasn’t the beginning of a fairy-tale domestic life. Dharmendra was already married to Prakash Kaur, with four children Sunny, Bobby, Vijeeta, and Ajeeta. Divorce was not on the cards. But all sides remained tightlipped on how the arrangement was arrived at.

What followed was one of Hindi cinema’s most unconventional marriages. Hema moved into her own home, while Dharmendra stayed with his first family and even now, she lives in the house across the road from him in Juhu. Through it all, she was labelled the “other woman”, yet she stood her ground, faced the scrutiny, and refused to be defined by it.

As she put it in an old Lehren interview: “Nobody desires to live apart from their spouse, but sometimes circumstances force such situations, and one has to accept them. I am happy with myself. I have my two children, and I have brought them up very well. Of course, he (Dharmendra) was always there, always. Everywhere.”

With Hema, he would have two more daughters — Esha in 1981 and Ahana in 1985 — and remain deeply involved in their lives. Despite the complexity, it was a blended family that baffled outsiders but somehow found its own balance.

Though they were paired romantically in 28 films, the Dharam-Hema post-wedding screen story never took off. Razia Sultan (1983), their first release after marriage, underperformed. Scripts for the pair dried up. Individually, they kept working but Bollywood had moved on, pairing these reigning stars with newer faces. The last time they’d been on screen together was that same year.

For Dharam and Hema, the hyphen between their names now belonged more to life than to cinema. Yet the partnership endured. Despite the early drama — from parental disapproval to headlines picking apart their relationship — they stayed together.

She spends most of the time at her home in London, but when yesteryear actress Mumtaz visits Mumbai, she tries to meet some of her friends from the industry. This time around, she met her former co-star Dharmendra at his residence, and the pictures of their meeting went viral. Talking about their meeting, she shares, “I have only a handful of friends in the film industry, and one of them is Dharmendra. I visited him at his home in Mumbai. We met after a long time.”

Mumtaz says, “We were also joined by his wife (Prakash Kaur). We spoke for around two hours about duniya ki baatein, industry kitni badal gayi hain, log kitne badal gaye hain. We also remembered our film shoots. I haven’t done many films with him, but jitni bhi ki hai usme hum bahut close ho gaye. He is a wonderful man and a human being. I have genuinely liked him since then.”

Mumtaz and Dharmendra acted in films like Jheel Ke Us Paar (1973), Loafer (1973), among others, and they got along very well. Dharmendra says, “Mumtaz bohot saalon baad mili mujhe. Hamare waqt mein hum bohot zyaada milte the. During those days, main toh bagair kisi ko chhede baithta hi nahi tha. She was also very chulbuli in nature. Our tuning matched and hence, we bonded well. I used to visit her place and she would treat me to some yummy fish. It felt really wonderful that after so many years, she came to meet me.”

The actress also tried to meet Saira Banu. She shares, “After Dilip (Kumar) saab’s demise, I was worried about Saira and wanted to see her. I went to her house, but I was told that she is unwell. So, I couldn’t meet her. But jab unko pata chala that I visited her place, she called me. I was surprised because from what I had heard, she was in bad shape emotionally.”

The other actor Mumtaz speaks highly of is Jackie Shroff. She said, “He is not an old buddy, but a very new friend. When I was ill in London, it was very sweet of him to call me and ask me about my health. It’s not like I knew him that well, but still, he called and checked on me. Even his son, Tiger, spoke to me. Tiger is so talented and hardworking. I like that family. Such a lovely bunch of people. Nahi toh kaha milte hai aise log aaj kal?”