Return
to Story Page
To print: Select File and then Print from your
browser's menu
Michel W. Potts
Los Angeles, June 22: One of Bollywood's premier villains has scored a professional coup by becoming the first and only Bollywood star to be tapped by a Washington-based company to appear in television commercials for its international long-distance dialing number.
Starring Gulshan Grover, the commercials for Startec Global Communications, which were shot in the first week of June, will be beamed into homes later this summer not only in this country but in Canada, Britain and France as well, besides some countries in Africa and the Middle East.
``Even the press campaign has been worked around my filmstar image of a bad man,'' Grover told the California newspaper India-West during a stopover in Los Angeles. The spots were shot by the Facilities Group, one of London's leading commercial firms, and the scripts featuring Grover had been written in such a way that the star is seen on the set during the shooting of one of his films.
Rather than using him as a spokesman who speaks directly to the viewer, theexecutives at Startec preferred instead to have Grover portray himself in the commercials, showing him at work and then using their 10-10-719 international long distance number between takes.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
------------------------------------------------------------
This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
------------------------------------------------------------