Beautiful Evergreen Rekha, her Life Story:
01At 62, Rekha might no longer believe in celebrating birthdays as she has reportedly said. However, ever since this Southern beauty entered Bollywood, she has lost none of the mystique and glamour that have made her a figure of national fascination over her many years in the industry. We celebrate her birthday with a journey through her life and times.
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Rekha was born Bhanurekha Ganesan to Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan and Telugu actress Pushpavalli. With acting in her blood, it was only natural that she should took to the silver screen.
However, it wasn't easy. The actress has led a controversial life and it began with her birth.
Rekha's parents were not married and her father Gemini Ganesan refused to acknowledge her. On her part, Rekha kept her identity secret and revealed her origins and the story of her father's neglect much later in her career. She was famously estranged from her father after she made it big and ignored his attempts at reconciliation. Gemini Ganesan already had four daughters with his first wife, Alamelu. He had a second daughter with Pushpavalli, and another daughter and a son with second wife Savitri. Rekha has one sister, five half-sisters and a half-brother.
Credited as Baby Bhanurekha in the Telugu film Rangula Ratnam (1966), Rekha made her acting debut at age 12. Rekha made her Bollywood debut in 1969 with the movie Anjana Safar (later retitled Do Shikari). She bagged her first role as a lead actress in Sawan Bhadon (1970) opposite Navin Nischol.
The film was a big hit and Rekha became a star overnight.
Then came a blockbuster hit opposite Amitabh Bachchan in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar. In the immensely popular film, Rekha's 'smouldering intensity' as the courtesan Zohra brought her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Filmfare Awards.
In 1981, Yash Chopra made Silsila and executed a casting coup with Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan playing a married couple and Rekha playing the 'other woman.'
Silsila was widely considered a case of art imitating life as Rekha's alleged personal alliance with the married Amitabh had gathered notoriety amongst filmgoers.
The two actors gave a string of hit films together spurning reams of gossip about their 'relationship'. Silsila, however, turned out to be their last collaboration.
But if her life off-screen was languishing, Rekha's career was blazing away, firing on all engines. She was mesmerising in 1981 film Umrao Jaan and her portrayal of the titular courtesan poetess won her the National Film Award for Best Actress.
The latter half of the '80s saw her venture into art house cinema with independent directors.
Shyam Benegal's award-winning drama, Kalyug (1981), Govind Nihalani's Vijeta (1982), Girish Karnad's Utsav (1984) and Gulzar's Ijaazat (1987) were some of Rekha's memorable films from this era.
Rekha's career graph showed a dip at the dawn of the '90s and she started losing lead roles to younger actresses. Once again, she put her talent for reinvention to good use with roles in Mira Nair's risqué Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996) and the commercially successful Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi (1996) opposite Akshay Kumar. In the latter, she played the role of a gangster (which won her another award) and earned her the nickname 'Madam X'.
Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi was a major grosser and earned Rekha several awards, including the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award and the Star Screen Award for Best Villain.
Many consider her unlucky in love, however. In 1990, Rekha married Delhi-based businessman Mukesh Aggarwal, a relationship that ended in tragedy when Mr Aggarwal committed suicide a year later.
While she has always remained secretive about her personal life, this year many shocking revelations were made about the life of the actress in a biography by Yasser Usman.
Titled Rekha: The Untold Story, the biography is a tell-all supposedly bringing many rumours around the actress' enigma to the forefront, and addressing the relationships in her life.
