Mithun Chakraborty
He had to struggle a lot to achieve his goal and in desperation he did everything that can fetch him work and money. He even said in his interviews- money is very important for me.
When he was being charged for his Naxalite contacts he went to Bombay. There he enrolled himself in FTII. There he made a lot of friends who later on became major actors.
When he couldn't get work after passing out he decided to join dance troupe and took the name Rana Rez.
He befriended the son of producer director Dulal Guha and got a scene in his film Do Anjaane starring Amitabh and Rekha. He used to carry the bags of Rekha during the shoot.
The same year he made his debut as lead actor in Mrigya and won a National Award. But when desirable work didn't follow he started working in low budget B grade action films.
One of his FTII classmate Ranjita became a star with blockbuster hits Laila Majnu, Patil Patni aur Wo etc. When no other actress was ready to work with Mithun, Ranjita became his regular co-star. The two stars worked in 25 films together. With the success of Suraksha and Tarana, and later Unnees Bees, Hamse Badhkar Kaun etc Mithun became a star but Ranjita lost work in big budget films as she got typecast as low budget film heroine. Years later when Ranjita was struggling to find big films and Mithun became a big star, Mithun promised her lead role opposite him in Daata. But then Mithun and Padmini pair became popular with Pyar Jhukta Nahi and Mithun ditched Ranjita with Padmini.
He did affairs with many of his heroines or atleast fanned the rumours so that he could take advantage of the situation commercially. With Yogita Bali and Sarika he had affairs, With Ranjeeta it was always questionable, with Sridevi it almost wrecked the home of Mithun and Yogita, and with Padmini it was rumours.
He started copying Elvis Presley and John Travolta in his dances and openly acknowledged that he was inspired by their dancing. Eventually Disco Dancer made him a dancing star
He tried to become a big star by producing a film for himself called Boxer. At the same time he was not ready to promote one of his small budget romantic film because he believed that audience don't like him in romantic and emotional roles. Eventually the opposite happened - Boxer failed badly and he lost a lot of money. And the small film he was not promoting released after delay of 2 years, and became one of the biggest hits of his career- Pyar Jhukta Nahi.
When his career started dwindling in 90’s and one of his friend Hanif Kadwala with whom he had multiple movie contracts, was arrested in the Bombay Bl**t case 1993, he decided to move out of Bombay. But he wanted to earn enough money to build his hotel in Ooty (for which he had taken loan of 10 crores from Indian Government and land was bought from one of his producer). So to achieve it, he brought a genius plan- the Ooty Film Factory. Mithun Chakraborty collaborated with B grade makers to make cheap B grade films (10–12 per year and sometimes more than 15) shot entirely in Ooty.
The entire cast and crew used to stay at his hotel which created business for his hotel. These films were shot at same location, in few days, sold at reasonable price and recovered their money. So even though it harmed the reputation of Mithun as an actor badly it earned a lot of money for him.
Lately, he switched his political affiliation from far left in his initial days to far right and for his pro-ruling party speeches he was rewarded with Dada Saheb Phalke Award the highest film fraternity award by Indian government. At one point He even supported the Emergency in the wake of the 1984 crisis. But today he has become the darling of BJP. Like many other actors he also chose to change sides according to their interests.
