Hema Malini has been called Bollywood's Dream Girl for decades, and most people assume the nickname came from her blockbuster 1977 film Dream Girl. The truth, however, goes back even further, to a time before she had appeared in a single Bollywood film. Hema Malini herself revealed this story years later on The Kapil Sharma Show.
A poster that hid her real name
In 1968, Hema Malini was preparing for her Hindi film debut with Sapno Ka Saudagar. Around that time, the film's producer B. Anandaswamy came up with an unusual promotional strategy. Instead of printing Hema Malini's name on the posters, he had them splashed with a bold line instead, Dream Girl Coming To Town. Hema Malini was stunned to see her own name missing from the promotional material. When she asked the producer why, he told her this would become her new identity going forward. His reasoning was that audiences would first grow curious about this mysterious name, and only later would the suspense be lifted to reveal exactly who this beautiful Dream Girl was.
A Dream Girl before the film even released
The gamble paid off completely. By the time Sapno Ka Saudagar hit screens, Hema Malini was already being called Dream Girl by everyone, even before audiences had watched a single frame of the film. The movie was directed by Mahesh Kaul, with showman Raj Kapoor playing the lead alongside Hema Malini. Its music was composed by the celebrated duo Shankar-Jaikishan. Once she stepped into Bollywood with this film, Hema Malini never looked back, steadily building her place in the industry.
Nine years later, a real film called Dream Girl
Interestingly, nearly nine years after her debut, Hema Malini actually starred in a film literally titled Dream Girl in 1977. Directed by Pramod Chakravorty, the film also featured major stars like Dharmendra and Ashok Kumar. In it, Hema Malini took on five different disguises, playing characters named Sapna, Padma, Champabai and Rajkumari, all to help run an orphanage. Audiences loved this multi-role performance. What had started purely as a promotional gimmick had, by then, become permanently attached to her name, and to this day, Hema Malini remains Bollywood's one and only true Dream Girl.
