Akshay Kumar whose original name was Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia was born September 9th 1967 in Delhi. His father was a government worker who encouraged him to get into sports. He lived in Delhi's Chandni Chowk neighborhood before moving to Mumbai where he studied at Don Bosco School and Khalsa College where he got into sports.
Akshay Kumar went on to study martial arts in Bangkok where he worked as a chef and returned to Mumbai to teach. One of his martial arts students happened to be a photographer and suggested that Kumar, than Bhatia should pursue a career in modeling. The student connected him to a modeling company where Kumar received Rs. 5000 for two hours of work as opposed to Rs. 4000 a year at his regular job. Kumar than changed his name and began modeling.
Shortly after Akshay started to model he began to get offers to do films. He was noticed for his dance skills and stunts in some films he did in the beginning and really broke through with his first hit movie "Khiladi". But the movie that finally classified him as a top league actor was "Yeh Dillagi".
Afterwards he did films like "Mohra" and "Sabse Bada Khiladi" which launched him into being a household name. After mastering the action movie field he began to do different kinds of films like "Ajnaabee" where he played a villain and was successful at playing the role.
He also delved into a romantic role playing opposite Shilpa Shetty in "Dhadkan" and was noticed for his talent in that field of films also. Kumar played a comedy role in "Hera Pheri" and continued to act and make himself more versatile. He went on to act in many more successful films and is one of Bollywood's most sought after actors today.
