In an industry built on glamour and second chances, Deepak Malhotra’s story is one of those rare cautionary tales where fame evaporated in a flash. Once touted as India’s biggest male model and groomed to be Bollywood’s next heartthrob, Malhotra made his acting debut with Yash Chopra’s Lamhe in 1991, starring opposite the legendary Sridevi. The role should have catapulted him into stardom. Instead, it ended his career before it began.
What was meant to be a dream debut turned into a public disaster. He had the looks, the screen presence, and the backing of one of the industry’s biggest production houses. But all it took was one scene and one poorly delivered word — “Pallo” — to turn Malhotra into a national punchline. In that moment, as his character Siddharth tried to revive Sridevi’s Pallavi in a dramatic scene, audiences laughed when they were supposed to feel moved. And in that laugh, an entire career crumbled.
The trolling may not have had hashtags back then, but the ridicule was real. Critics shredded his performance. Audiences mocked his delivery. Memes about the infamous “Pallo” scene still circulate decades later. Before he could recover or rebrand, film offers dried up. Yash Chopra replaced him in Darr. He lost out on Bekhudi, Suryavanshi, and even Chamatkar, which eventually went to a then-unknown Shah Rukh Khan.
By the early 90s, a man once considered competition for future icons like Aamir and SRK had vanished from every casting list. His only post-Lamhe film, Tejasvini, also bombed. With his acting dreams over, Deepak Malhotra disappeared from the limelight, left India, and changed everything, including his name.
Today, he is known as Dino Martelli. Based in New York, he reinvented himself from scratch. After dabbling in industrial design and continuing to model abroad, he built a successful apparel business in the US. He married former model and choreographer Lubna Adam, and their two sons, Kian and Kyle, have even modeled for Manish Malhotra.
What makes his story so haunting is not the failure, but how swift and unforgiving it was. In an era with no social media, no viral trends, and no second acts unless you were lucky, Deepak Malhotra became a forgotten name for an entire generation — known only for one line and one scene.
But in starting over, he found something even Bollywood rarely offers — peace, privacy, and success on his own terms.
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