The first thing Milind Soman does when he meets you is to disarm you with his startling warmth and humility. He makes you feel like he’s known you for years and is one of those few people who actually looks directly into your eyes when you’re having a conversation with him.
I first met Milind by default in 1995 when he and Madhu Sapre were hauled up by the (late) Minister of Culture, Pramod Navalkar, for posing nude for the Tuff Shoes advertisement (does the brand still exist?)
Milind was dating Madhu at the time and the two had shed their clothes (and inhibitions) for this ad, which ultimately caused a huge controversy at the time.
I had gone to interview Madhu at her residence at Andheri East in Mumbai and it was Milind who opened the door when I rang the bell. What I noticed through the hour-or-so that I was there, was that Milind and Madhu spoke to each other mostly in Marathi and that he was very “at-home” in the Sapre household.
This was the defining moment of his career that made him shoot to supermodel status. The press could not get enough of the duo and no magazine was published without them on the cover.
Before Milind, there were a number of well-known models. But what truly gave him his supermodel status was the fact that he was grounded and respected his middle-class Maharashtrian background (even though he was born and raised in Scotland for the first seven years of his life).
Like the other supermodels of his time (Dino Morea, Arjun Rampal, John Abraham), Milind too tried his hand at acting in films but never quite made his mark as compared to the others. In 1995, he played one of the lead roles in India’s first soap opera, A Mouthful Of Sky but it failed to take off. Then, in 1998, he successfully played a superhero called Captain Vyom, on television.
Roles in films like Agni Varsha, Pyaar Ka Super Hit Formula (which he co-produced), Bheja Fry (and a number of Tamil films as well) failed to propell him into the league of superstars.
Then, in 2006, while working on the film Valley Of Flowers, Milind met and fell in love with French actress Mylene Jampanoi. He took her to Goa six months after meeting her and proposed marriage. However, due to their hectic lifestyles and the long distance between them (she lived in France and he, in Mumbai) the marriage didn’t survive more than two years. They got divorced in 2009.
These days, Milind is one of the foremost propagators of physical fitness and is seen every year as one of the celebrity participants in the Mumbai marathon. He also co-owns a production company (Face Entertainment) which produces lifestyle content for various TV channels. In fact, this company is very successful and Milind seems to have found his groove as a producer.
Today, on his Forty-Sixth birthday, MissMalini and her team wish him the Happiest Birthday ever and wish him success in all his endeavors!