Classic Legends is an Indian television Hindi entertainment show based on the notable and talented people of the Hindi film industry. The first four seasons of the show were aired on Zee Classic. The fifth season airs on Zee Anmol Cinema, Zee Bollywood and Zee Cinema HD. The show is presented by popular Bollywood lyricist, Javed Akhtar. In the show, Javed Akhtar explores the lives of great artists from the golden era of Bollywood who graced the silverscreen with their powerful performances. The first season of show premièred on 11 December 2011 followed by four other seasons.[1][2][3]

Classic Legends
Title card of Season 5
GenreNon-fiction
Presented byJaved Akhtar
Country of originIndia
Original languageHindi
No. of seasons5
No. of episodes65
Production
ProducerEssel Vision Productions
Running time40 mins (approx.; seasons 1, 3 & 4)
50 mins (approx.; seasons 2 & 5]
Original release
Release11 December 2011 (2011-12-11) –
2 March 2019 (2019-03-02)

Each episode takes on one artist while the series covers people who were popular actors, actresses, music composers, directors, singers and lyricists.

Season 1

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The series is presented by Javed Akhtar. Every season has a total of 13 episodes, each exploring the life of a famous personality from the Hindi film Industry. The first season was aired from 11 December 2011 to 4 March 2012. The season featured stories of a variety of people from the film industry ranging from Raj Kapoor to Guru Dutt, Nargis to Kishore Kumar and lyricists like Sahir Ludhianvi to name a few.[citation needed]

Episode Date Portrait Personality
Overall Season
1 1 11 December 2011 Raj Kapoor
2 2 18 December 2011   R.D. Burman
3 3 25 December 2011   Majrooh Sultanpuri
4 4 1 January 2012   Kishore Kumar
5 5 8 January 2012 Nargis
6 6 15 January 2012   Bimal Roy
7 7 22 January 2012   Vijay Anand
8 8 29 January 2012 Ashok Kumar
9 9 5 February 2012   Sahir Ludhianvi
10 10 12 February 2012   Mehboob Khan
11 11 19 February 2012 Madhubala
12 12 26 February 2012 Guru Dutt
13 13 4 March 2012   Shammi Kapoor

Season 2

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After an overwhelming response to the first season, the second season was aired barely eight months after the first season ended. The season was aired from 18 Nov 2012 – 10 Feb 2013.[4] In this season, Dilip Kumar's biography was extended to the next episode.So, instead of 13, biography of 12 personalities was shared. The season featured the anecdotes from the life of actors like Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, singer Mohammad Rafi and lyricist Shailendra. Meena Kumari was the only actress whose story featured in this season.

Episode Date Portrait Personality
Overall Season
14 1 18 November 2012   S.D. Burman
15 2 25 November 2012   Meena Kumari
16 3 2 December 2012   Dev Anand
17 4 9 December 2012   Dilip Kumar
18 5 16 December 2012
19 6 23 December 2012   Mohammad Rafi
20 7 30 December 2012   Anand Bakshi
21 8 6 January 2013   Hrishikesh Mukherjee
22 9 13 January 2013   Chetan Anand
23 10 20 January 2013   Shailendra
24 11 27 January 2013   Sunil Dutt
25 12 3 February 2013 Nasir Hussain
26 13 10 February 2013   Pran

Season 3

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The season three was aired from 2 November 2014 to 25 January 2015. Unlike other seasons, no lyricist was discussed, however, for the first time the life incidents of two singers were shared, instead of one.[5] This season featured stories of stars like Nutan and Sanjeev Kumar, directors like Yash Chopra and singer Lata Mangeshkar.[citation needed]

Episode Date Portrait Personality
Overall Season
27 1 2 November 2014   Yash Chopra
28 2 9 November 2014   Sanjeev Kumar
29 3 16 November 2014   Shankar Jaikishan
30 4 23 November 2014   Mehmood Ali
31 5 30 November 2014   Mukesh
32 6 7 December 2014   Dharmendra
33 7 14 December 2014   Lata Mangeshkar
34 8 21 December 2014   Manoj Kumar
35 9 28 December 2014   Madan Mohan
36 10 4 January 2015   Nutan
37 11 11 January 2015 Manmohan Desai
38 12 18 January 2015   O.P. Nayyar
39 13 25 January 2015   Waheeda Rehman

Season 4

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After a gap of more than two years, the fourth season[6] was aired from 24 Sep 2017 – 17 Dec 2017. The season featured stories of artists like Rajendra Kumar, Vyjayanthimala,[7] singer Asha Bhosle and composers Laxmikant Pyarelal. The final episode of this season was touted as a tribute to veteran actor Shashi Kapoor who passed away thirteen days before the episode aired.[8]

Episode Date Portrait Personality
Overall Season
40 1 24 September 2017   Balraj Sahni
41 2 1 October 2017   Asha Parekh
42 3 8 October 2017   Rajendra Kumar
43 4 15 October 2017   Asha Bhosle
44 5 22 October 2017   Laxmikant Pyarelal
45 6 29 October 2017 Kalyanji Anandji
46 7 5 November 2017   Vyjayanthimala
47 8 12 November 2017   Hemant Kumar
48 9 19 November 2017 Ravi
49 10 26 November 2017 Sadhana Shivdasani
50 11 3 December 2017   Shakeel Badayuni
51 12 10 December 2017 Rajendra Krishan
52 13 17 December 2017   Shashi Kapoor

Season 5

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With the show doing fabulously well and on popular demand, the show was back with Season 5 commencing from 8 December 2018. It airs on 3 channels – Zee Anmol Cinema, Zee Bollywood and Zee Cinema HD. For the first time, biography of not one but two people featured in a single episode. Final episode of this season was aired on 2 March 2019.

Episode Date Portrait Personality
Overall Season
53 1 8 December 2018   Rishi Kapoor
  Sridevi
54 2 15 December 2018   Mumtaz
S.H. Bihari
55 3 22 December 2018   Ajit
  Khayyam
56 4 29 December 2018   Om Prakash
  Manna Dey
57 5 5 January 2019   Nirupa Roy
Wajahat Mirza
58 6 12 January 2019   Amrish Puri
  Anu Malik
59 7 19 January 2019   Leela Mishra
  Basu Chatterjee
60 8 26 January 2019   C. Ramchandra
Raja Mehdi Ali Khan
61 9 2 February 2019 Hasrat Jaipuri
  Talat Mahmood
62 10 9 February 2019 Mukhram Sharma
  Nadira
63 11 16 February 2019 Amiya Chakravarty
  Hema Malini
64 12 23 February 2019   Mala Sinha
  Ravindra Jain
65 13 2 March 2019   Jaya Bachchan
  Prakash Mehra

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "'I can share unpublished things about Bollywood legends': Javed Akhtar". newKerala.com. 15 December 2011.
  2. ^ "Now, Javed Akhtar to host TV show". rediff.com. 9 December 2011.
  3. ^ "Hindi Cinema Owes Its Glory To Its Classic Legends, Says Javed Akhtar". news18.com. 21 September 2017.
  4. ^ "Zee Classic returns with 'Classic Legends Season 2'". bestmediainfo.com. 9 November 2012.
  5. ^ "Zee Classic is back with 'Classic Legends Season 3'". bestmediainfo.com. 31 October 2014.
  6. ^ "Why Asha Parekh Was A Notorious Child". news18.com. 29 September 2017.
  7. ^ "Zee Classic to highlight Vyjayanthimala's journey on Classic Legends Season 4". televisionpost.com. 1 November 2017.
  8. ^ "A tribute to Shashi Kapoor". Tribune. 16 December 2017.
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