Mahipal Chand Bhandari, popularly known only by his first name Mahipal, was a Hindi film actor who worked in over 100 films, primarily as the main lead in mythological, stunt, and religious films. Born in Jodhpur in 1919, Mahipal was interested in music, drama and dance since his school days. When he passed out of Jaswant College he got associated with the Marwari Film Making Company in Jodhpur. In 1942, he worked as the lead actor in the film Nazrana (1942). The film was a failure. Soon Mahipal moved to Bombay where he was noticed by the legendary filmmaker V Shantaram. Mahipal used his creative inclination towards poetry and started writing lyrics for films. He also portrayed minor characters in films such as Shankar Parvati (1943), Banwasi (1948), and Laxmi Narayan (1951). Mahipal got his first big break in Homi Wadia's film, Shri Ganesh Mahima (1950). The film was a success and Mahipal established himself as a hero in the mythological and religious genres of films. He also worked in fantasy films such as Alladin Aur Jadui Chirag (1952). V Shantaram cast him in Navrang (1959), which was a superhit and catapulted Mahipal to stardom. Mahipal is believed to have also been a very popular star in the Gulf region because some of his films were based on stories of The Arabian Nights. Mahipal worked in a number of musicals as well and directly challenged the convention of old Hindi movies, wherein only women characters danced.

By the 1970s, however, the appeal of the mythological and fantasy genres was decreasing, to be replaced by socials and multi-starrers. Mahipal had to make a major change to his screen persona and moved on to play character roles in films such as Rani Aur Lalpari (1975) and Do Chehre (1977). His last film as the lead was the religious movie Jai Santoshi Ma (1975), which broke Bollywood box office records and remains one of Hindi cinema's biggest hits.

Mahipal died of cardiac arrest in 2005 at the age of 86, after a long career as an actor and lyricist.