After Ashok Kumar became a star of Hindi films, the Ganguly family visited Bombay (now Mumbai) regularly. Abhas Kumar changed his name to 'Kishore Kumar' and started his cinema career as a chorus singer at Bombay Talkies, where his brother worked. Kumar's first film appearance was in "Shikari" (1946), in which his brother, Ashok played the lead role. Music director Khemchand Prakash gave Kumar a chance to sing "Marne Ki Duayen Kyon Mangu" for the film "Ziddi" (1948). After this, Kumar was offered many other assignments, but he was not very serious about a film career. In 1949, he settled in Bombay. Kumar played the lead in the Bombay Talkies film "Andolan" (1951), directed by Phani Majumdar. Although he got some acting assignments with the help of his brother, he was more interested in becoming a singer. But Ashok wanted Kumar to be an actor like him. Between 1946 and 1955, Kumar appeared in 22 films of which 16 were flops and since he was disinterested in taking up acting as a career, he would find ways to be in the bad books of the director or producer, so that they throw him from their films. It was only after the success of films such as "Ladki", "Naukari", "Miss Malaysia", "Char Paise" and "Baap Re Baap" that Kumar developed an interest in acting seriously, which resulted in him having successful films as the lead actor between 1955 and 1966.