Sharmila Tagore

The 'Aradhana' of Bollywood, Sharmila Tagore was born in a Hindu Bengali family on 8th of December, 1944 in Hyderabad. She is the daughter of Gitindranath Tagore. Sharmila completed her eduction from St. John Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School and Loreto Convent, Asansol respectively.

At the initial phase of her career in 1959, Sharmila catered leading roles in many of Satyajit Ray's Bengali flicks, mostly co-starring the beauty opposite Soumitra Chatterjee. However, this Bong beauty nailed her debut into Bollywood with Shakti Samanta's 'Kashmir Ki Kali' alongside then heartthrob Shammi Kapoor in the year 1964, which went on to settle the top at the box office. Later, this hit pair was again teamed up together in 1967 release, 'An Evening In Paris'.

The film gained success, but also raised quite a few eyebrows for Sharmila, as she donned a swimwear onscreen which was not appreciated in the Indian Society. The bold step taken forward by the actress managed herself to be a trendsetter of that era. Dismissing all the controversies behind, Sharmila catered the audiences serving hits with her excellent work in the films, such as 'Aradhana', 'Amar Prem', 'Safar', 'Daag', 'Maalik' all alongside the first superstar of Bollywood, Rajesh Khanna.

This brought up another trend of pairing Sharmila Tagore and Rajesh Khanna to assure prosperity at the box office. The pair managed to deliver six hits, but also attended critical acclamation with box office failures like 'Raja Rani' and 'Tyaag'. She drew the nation in a craze during the vintage era as well as gathered nation wide respect by getting rewarded herself by the National Award for her in Gulzar's 1975 flick 'Mausam'.

As this actress proved unconventional and out of the box in her professional existence, so did she proved herself in her personal life. By marrying the 'Nawab Of Pataudi' Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, who was then the Captain of the Indian Cricket Team, the actress managed to prosper her unusual paired up wedlock along with her kids Saif Ali Khan, Saba Ali Khan and Soha Ali Khan.

Sharmila Tagore, the trend setter sat off another bench mark in the industry by becoming one among the B-Town ladies to be working post marriage. As the marriage was not common, she became a Begum of Patudi and still working her best for the entertainment business, was quite a eye widening task well carried off. The actress was later seen in flicks like 'Seemabaadha', 'Chhoti Bahu', 'Dastaan', but there was one out of the box collection coming from the actress that went ahead to become a classic and that was Hrishikesh Mukherjee's 1975 release 'Chupke Chupke'. Later the star appeared in quite a few other releases like 'Amanush', 'Be-Sharam' (1978), 'Dooriyan', 'Namkeen', 'Sunny', 'Mississippi Masala', 'Aashiq Aawara', 'Mann' and 'Dhadkan'.

As proving her best in the acting department, Sharmila Tagore earned her position of a respective member of the Indian Film Censor Board for a fruitful span from 2004 till 2011. Even though, she was honored with the respected position, Tagore did not bid good-bye to her acting career. She was recently seen luring the audience in a Marathi film 'Samaantar' directed by the ace Bollywood actor-director Amol Palekar along with a vital role alongside real life son Saif Ali Khan in the film 'Eklavya'. Prior to this, she also essayed a full-fledged role in Mahesh Manjrekar's 'Viruddh'. She portrayed the struggle of a mother along with the onscreen father Amitabh Bachchan, who together protest against the inhuman assassination of their beloved son. Well though, the flick was not a lure at the box office, the actors of the flick along with Sharmila were heavily appreciated for their execution. Her last screen presence was felt in 2010 essaying a character in Deepika Padukone, Imran Khan starrer 'Break Ke Baad'.

Sharmila was obliged as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in the year 2005. However, the recent year of 2013 delighted the former Begum of Pataudi with the prestigious 'Padma Bhushan' award conferred by the Government of India.