Kumudlal Ganguly, better known by his stage name Ashok Kumar and also fondly called Dadamuni, was an Indian film actor who attained iconic status in Indian cinema and who was a member of the cinematic Ganguly family.
Kumudlal Ganguly, popularly known by his screen name ‘Ashok Kumar’ was a legendary film actor and producer who had very finally played all lead, supportive and negative characters. He was called as “Dadamoni” ( an affectionate term meaning ‘elder brother’).

He completed his education at Presidency College of the University of Calcutta, Kolkata to become a lawyer. But he was not interested in law and had an interest in cinema and wanted to work as a technician in cinemas. His brother in law, Sashadhar Mukherjee was a senior person in the popular film studio of the time ‘Bombay Talkies’ and identified his interest and advised him to move to the city of dreams,’ Bombay’.He started his career as a laboratory assistant in Bombay Studio.

He was happy with his job but suddenly her career took a turn towards acting as a “Lead actor” by a mere accident on the sets of movie ‘Jeevan Naiya’ when the female lead of the movie “Devika Rani” asked her husband who was studio head to dismiss the male lead Najmul Hassan and replace him with ‘Kumudlal Ganguly’.He was given a new screen name “Ashok Kumar”.He worked with Devika Rani giving hit movies but was overshadowed by her. The movie ‘Kismet’ launched him as an anti-hero and he got stardom making him the first lead actor with a film earning 1 crore.

He worked on many movies which had great success on box office, Chal Chal Re Naujawan, Sangram, Samadhi to name few. He started working as a producer and produced many hit movies and established many of the popular stars of Bollywood. He mentored many famous names in Hindi cinema including Hrishida. Later he switched to mature and character roles. He had worked in over 275 films and done more than 30 Bengali dramas. ‘Aankhon Mein Tum Ho’ was his last movie in 1997.

Dadasaheb Phalke Award Indian Cinema Award 1988 Hindi Film Industry
Padma Bhushan Civilian Award 1999 Arts

Ashok Kumar died on 10-12-2001 at his residence in Chembur in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, at age of 90. He died of heart failure.

He was born to Kunjlal Ganguly (a lawyer) and Gouri Devi (a homemaker) in a Bengali family in Bhagalpur (Now in the Bihar state of India). He was the eldest of four with two brothers Kalyan (actor Anoop Kumar), Abhas (Popular singer and actor Kishore Kumar) and a sister Sati Devi (married to Sashadhar Mukherjee).

He had an arranged marriage with Shobha at the very young age and the couple had a harmonious married life and had four children son named Aroop Ganguly and three daughters named Bharati Patel, Rupa Verma and Preeti Ganguly (Died in 2012).