The thespian, who recovered from an illness recently, received his friends and old colleagues with warmth at his Bandra residence in the morning.

Referring to the recent Mumbai terror attacks, his wife Saira Banu said, "it will be a quiet birthday after what we have been through recently."

Kumar said he thanked God for his benevolence and affection bestowed on him.

Considered as one of the greatest actors of Indian cinema, Kumar started his career in 1944 and went on to do some powerful roles till 1990s. He has delivered many hits in 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1980s. His performances have been regarded as the epitome of emoting in Indian cinema.

He was the first actor to receive Filmfare Best Actor Award and holds the record for maximum number of Filmfare Awards won for that category.

He performed a variety of roles in films like Andaz (1949), Aan (1952), Devdas (1955), Azaad (1955) and the evergreen Mughal-e-Azam.

After 1976 he took a five-year-break from movies. In 1981 he returned with a blockbuster `Kranti' and continued playing the character roles in hits like Shakti (1982), Karma (1986) and Saudagar (1991). His last film Qila came in 1998 and since then he has retired from the film industry.

Kumar was born Muhammad Yusuf Khan in Qissa Khawani Bazaar in Peshawar, in the then undivided India. Khan was born in a Pashtun family of 12 children. His father, Ghulam Sarwar, was a fruit merchant and owned large orchards in Peshawar and Deolali near Nashik in Maharashtra.

The family relocated to Mumbai in 1930s and in the early 1940s, Khan moved to Pune and started off with his canteen business and supplying dry fruits.

There he was spotted by a leading actress of those years, Devika Rani, who was also the wife of founder of Bombay Talkies Himanshu Rai. She helped his entry into the Hindi film industry and also gave him the screen name of Dilip Kumar.

His first film, `Jwar Bhata', was released in 1944 but it went unnoticed. In 1947 he shot to prominence with `Jugnu' which was his first major hit. In 1949, he co-starred with Raj Kapoor in the romantic melodrama `Andaz', which became a huge success and made him a star. Throughout the 1950s, he was one of the biggest stars of Bollywood along with Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand.

His tragic roles in popular films such as `Deedar' (1951), 'Amar' (1954), 'Devdas' (1955) and `Madhumati' (1958) earned him the title of `tragedy king'. A few of them such as 'Devdas' and 'Ram Aur Shyam' have been re-made several times.

His 1960 film `Mughal-e-Azam, originally in black-and- white with some colour scenes in the latter half, was fully colourised in 2004 and re-released. Another one of his classics, `Naya Daur', was colourised and released last year.