Sharmila Tagore

Sharmila Tagore

Sharmila Tagore (born 8 December 1944) is an Indian film actress. She has won National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards for her performances. She has led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011. In December 2005 she was chosen as an UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In 2013, she was awarded Padma Bhushan by the Government of India.Sharmila Tagore began her career as an actress in Satyajit Ray's 1959 Bengali film Apur Sansar (The World of Apu), as the ill-fated bride of the title character. She appeared in a number of Ray films, often co-starring with Soumitra Chatterjee. She established herself as a popular Hindi film actress with Shakti Samanta's Kashmir Ki Kali with Shammi Kapoor in 1964. Samanta again cast her in many more hit films, notably An Evening in Paris (1967), again with Shammi, the first appearance in a bikini of an Indian actress, (Sadhana had appeared in one-piece bathing suit in earlier films) which not only shocked conservative Indian audiences but also set off a wave of bikini-clad actresses carried forward by Dimple Kapadia (in Bobby, 1973), Zeenat Aman (in Heera Panna, 1973; Qurbani, 1980) and Parveen Babi (in Yeh Nazdeekiyan, 1982) and established Tagore as somewhat of a sex symbol in Hindi films. She also posed in a bikini for the glossy Filmfare magazine in 1968. But, when Tagore was the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, she expressed concerns about the increased use of the bikini in Indian films.
Samanta later teamed up Tagore with Rajesh Khanna for movies such as Aradhana (1969) and Amar Prem (1972). Other directors paired them together in Safar (1970), Daag (1973), Maalik (1972). The pair of Khanna- Sharmila gave 6 box office hits – Aradhana, Safar, Amar Prem, Chhoti Bahu, Daag and Avishkaar and films like Raja Rani, Tyaag, Maalik were critically acclaimed but box office flops. She starred in Gulzar's 1975 film, Mausam and won the National Film Award for Best Actress. She also played a supporting role as heroine Sarita Choudhury's mother in Mira Nair's 1991 film Mississippi Masala.
She also appeared in Marathi film Samaantar by Amol Palekar. Her earlier release was Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Eklavya: The Royal Guard, which brought together real-life mother and son, Sharmila Tagore and Saif Ali Khan. They shared screen space for the first time since Aashiq Awara (1993).

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharmila_Tagore & Google image.