Rakhee - Actress of Substance

Raakhee, the bollywood veteran actress was born on August 15, 1947 and her career spans from the late 1960s to 2003.

Raakhee hails from the state of West Bengal and had an arranged marriage to Bengali film director Ajay Biswas which ended shortly and unhappily thereafter. She married film director, poet and lyricist, Gulzar and has separated from him but never divorced him.

She has a daughter called Meghna (Bosky) who has directed a few films like Filhaal, Just Married and Dus Kahaniyaan.

Raakhee won rave reviews for her first Bengali film Badhu Baran 1967 in Calcutta after which she was offered the lead role in her first Hindi film, Rajshri Productions Jeevan Mrityu with Dharmendra in 1970.

She shot to fame in the 1971 film Sharmilee where she played a double role opposite Shashi Kapoor. Consequently, she established herself as a popular and major Hindi heroine acting with the best co-stars and directors, in several blockbuster films like Heera Panna (1973), Daag (1973), Blackmail (1973) and Tapasya (1976) .

Her extremley popular romantic screen pair was with the reigning king of Bollywood Amitabh Bachchan. They went on to star in no less than nine hit films; Kabhie Kabhie (1976), Muqaddar Ka Sikander (1977), Kasme Vaade (1978), Trishul (1978), Kaala Patthar (1979), Jurmana (1979), Barsaat Ki Ek Raat (1981), Lawaaris (1981) and Bemisal (1982).

With her main focus on good roles rather than star status, Raakhee did not hesitate to play Amithab's elder sister-in-law in Shaan(1980) and even his mother in the film Shakti (1982).

Towards the mid 1980's and 1990's, she played elderly mother or supporting roles in films such as Ram Lakhan (1989), Baazigar (1993), Khalnayak (1993), Karan Arjun (1995), Border (1997), Soldier (1998)
and Baadshah (1999).

Her last film was Shubho Mahurat in 2003 for which she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and she has since retired from the film industry.