Dharmendra got his He Man image with Phool Aur Patthar, which was so strong that he never managed to fully shrug it off.

Being tall, well-built and fit also made him more convincing in action sequences.

Mimics and meme-makers had a field day with his nostrils flaring and snarling, ‘Kutte kamine, main tera khoon pi jaoonga.’

Deepa Gahlot picks Dharmendra’s 10 best action movies.

Phool Aur Patthar (1966)

O P Ralhan gave him a breakthrough role, using his soft face and rugged physique — he took his shirt off! — as Shaaka, a criminal who reforms in the process of helping a widow (Meena Kumari) deal with her cruel and greedy in-laws.

Ankhen (1968)

Dressed in stylish suits, he played a James Bond-style spy in one of Hindi cinema’s earliest espionage thrillers. No star was better suited for the role that required intense action.

Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971)

Raj Khosla’s dacoit drama cast Dharmendra as a reformed thief turned-farmer, who takes on the task of ridding his village of the menace of dreaded bandit Jabar Singh (Vinod Khanna).

Jugnu (1973)

Pramod Chakravorty’s film starred Dharmendra as a Robin Hood style thief, who conducts daring heists to get money to help the poor.

Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973 )

When their parents are murdered by the villain, three young brothers are separated. The oldest, Shankar, grows up to be Dharmendra, a criminal, who wears sombre black and has one mission in life: To find his brothers and avenge the killing of his parents.

Pratiggya (1975 )

In Dulal Guha’s film, produced by Dharmendra, he played an villager who impersonates a dead cop to settle scores with a dacoit gang.

 Sholay(1975)

The Ramesh Sippy classic featured him as the as the charismatic, brave, merry Veeru, one half of the duo of petty thugs (the other being Amitabh Bachchan’s Jai), hired by Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) to protect his village from the sadistic outlaw, Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan).

Charas (1976)

A high-stakes action thriller, directed by Ramanand Sagar, was shot on beautiful locations in Europe, and was one of the first to focus on drug smuggling and international intrigue.

Dharmendra played a man who teams up with the police to smash the gang of villain Kalicharan (Ajit), and find his missing sister.

Kartavya (1979)

In Mohan Segal’s film, Dharmendra played a forest officer, going after poachers and smugglers, who may also have killed his father and abducted his brother.

Ghulami (1985)

J P Dutta’s debut film was a gritty rural drama, in which Dharmendra played Ranjit Singh Chaudhary, the son of a peasant who leads a rebellion against the tyrannical zamindars in a Rajasthan village.

Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff