Mehra was a leading film-maker of the 70’s-80’s and is best known for his blockbuster films replete with dramatic stories, super hit dialogues, and haunting lyrics. He was born in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, in 1939 and started his career as a production controller in the late 50’s.

He ventured into filmmaking with the 1968 Shashi Kapoor starrrer Haseena Maan Jayegi, followed by the 1971 hit Mela, which had Feroz and Sanjay Khan in lead roles. But it was his first home production, Zanjeer that catapulted him into the big league.

His association with Bachchan is regarded as Bollywood’s best director-actor pair ever. After 1973’s Zanjeer, the duo scripted mega hits like Hera Pheri (1976), Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978), Laawaris (1981), Namak Halal (1982), Sharabi (1984). Their last film together, Jaadugar (1989), was a commercial disaster and it was believed that the duo had a fallout after the film. But Bachchan laid the rumour to rest when he recently visited Mehra in hospital.

In one of his blog posts, Bachchan had recounted, “Prakash Mehra, the director of some of my most significant and most successful films lies in the ICU. When I go up to him he has difficulty in recognising me. It is most depressing to see my contemporaries in this way... This wizard of a director, now lying inane and without response, eyes open but closed for all purposes, ventilator breathing for him — just so unimaginable.”

For Mehra, life was indeed 70 mm and he knew how to play it. Affectionately called PM by his colleagues, he had a reputation of calling a spade a spade. His war of words with Manmohan Desai, the other big director in Bachchan’s work trajectory was legendary.

The exchange of the two heavyweight film-makers during the publicity campaigns of Mard and Sharabi is well chronicled. Desai who had directed Mard had famously remarked, “Only a mard can make a Mard and a sharabi can make a Sharabi.” Mehra though had the last laugh when Sharabi was declared a huge hit.

In recent years, Mehra had become a recluse. His later movies like Zindagi ek jua, Dalaal and Bal Brahamchari didn’t create much waves.

Family sources say he never quite recovered from the heartbreak of seeing his wife in coma for several years. His health worsened after his wife’s death a couple of years back.