Jackie Shroff

Jaikishan Kakubhai Saraf (born 1 February 1957), known by his screen name Jackie Shroff, is an Indian actor and former model who primarily works in the Hindi film industry. In a career spanning over four decades, he has appeared in 250 films in 13 languages. He has received several accolades including four Filmfare Awards.

After an uncredited small appearance in Swami Dada (1982), Shroff made his lead debut with Subhash Ghai's blockbuster actioner Hero (1983), which made him an overnight star. He went onto establish himself as an actor with top-grossing films, almost every year in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Andar Baahar (1984), Teri Meherbaniyan (1985), Aaj Ka Daur (1985), Karma (1986), Kudrat Ka Kanoon (1987), Jawab Hum Denge (1987), Ram Lakhan (1989), Tridev (1989), Baap Numbri Beta Dus Numbri (1990), Izzat (1991), Police Officer (1992), Khalnayak (1993), Rangeela (1995), Agni Sakshi (1996), Border (1997) and Bandhan (1998). He won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor for Parinda (1989) and Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1942: A Love Story and Rangeela.

In the 2000s, Shroff took on more supporting and negative roles in Refugee (2000), Mission Kashmir (2000), Devdas (2002), Hulchul (2004), Bhagam Bhag (2006), Apna Sapna Money Money (2006), Dhoom 3 (2013), Happy New Year (2014), Housefull 3 (2016), Bharat (2019), and Sooryavanshi (2021). Shroff has worked in films of other languages including Punjabi film Sardar Saab (2017), Konkani film Soul Curry (2017), Tamil films Bigil (2019), Jailer (2023) and Telugu film Saaho (2019).

In addition to his acting career, Shroff is an environmentalist. He is married to model and producer Ayesha Dutt, with whom he has two children, actor Tiger Shroff and entrepreneur Krishna Shroff.

Shroff was born as Jaikishan Kakubhai Saraf on 1 February 1957 in Bombay (present Mumbai), Bombay State, India. His father, Kakubhai Haribhai Shroff, was a Gujarati. His mother was a Turkmen who fled the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (present-day Kazakhstan) during a coup, according to Shroff. His maternal grandmother escaped to Ladakh, along with her seven daughters, and migrated to Delhi, finally reaching Mumbai.

Shroff's father came from a family of merchants and traders. However, they lost all of their money in the stock market and his father had to leave home at the age of 17. His father met his mother when they were both teenagers and got married.

Shroff dropped out of junior college after finishing his 11th class. He was raised in the Teen batti locality of Mumbai. In his childhood, he fought many street fights for his friends and often got beat up. His father Kakubhai was an astrologer.

As a youngster, he modelled in a few advertisements including Savage perfumes. It was one of his classmates in school who gave Shroff his name "Jackie" and then filmmaker Subhash Ghai stuck to this name when he launched him in the film Hero. Shroff regularly revisits his childhood home in Teen Batti.