July 18 2008: Amitabh Bachchan spent two months of his 67th year on a world tour with his family and entourage which turned out to be a multimillion-dollar show for everyone concerned.
Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan and his entourage hopped across Toronto, Trinidad, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Atlantic City, Chicago, New York & London and were paid about $700,000 per performance, while tickets worth over $1 million were sold in Chicago alone.
[youtube=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=OJTUVxdX8GY&NR]
In fact the Big B. got a thunderous ovation when he made his entry and the entire audience rose to its feet every time he performed, staying on its feet on one occasion for more than 30 minutes as Bachchan danced to his songs and delivered dialogues from films like ‘Deewar’, ‘Agneepath’ and ‘Silsila’.
The show also featured Abhishek & Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Madhuri Dixit, Preity Zinta, Ritesh Deshmukh, Akshay Kumar, Shilpa Shetty, Shiamak Davar and his dancers and music directors Vishal and Shekha and Jaya Bachchan even appeared on the stage to make a plea for a campaign against A combination of the Big B’s star power and the audience’s nostalgia appeared to have brought in the crowds.
Amitabh Bachchan (who went blogging-all-the-way) cited two unforgettable moments himself, “One, the audience at all our performances was incredible and second the press (in the US) has been very kind and generous.” This, he said, was in contrast to the ‘habitually negative press’ he received in India. Several newspapers in the US, including the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, featured prominent articles on him.
And of course there’s a website.
11 October 2008: On a more serious note the Big B. was rushed to the hospital on his birthday this year. News of his hospitalisation on his birthday brought a huge crowd of fans and well-wishers to his Juhu residence and Bandra’s Lilavati Hospital. Bachchan has been busy with the shooting of Teen Patti, Alladdin and Johnny Mastana.