Profile

Recognised as: One of the finest Hindi film actresses of her time.

Recognition:

• Jaya Bhaduri is particularly known for reinforcing a naturalistic style of acting in both, mainstream and “middle-cinema”.

• During her career, she won eight Filmfare Awards, including three for Best Actress and three for Best Supporting Actress, which makes her the overall most-awarded performer in the female acting categories, along with Nutan.

• She was awarded the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. In 1992, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.

Interesting facts:

• Jaya Bhaduri was born to a Bengali-Hindu family to Indira Bhaduri and Taroon Kumar Bhaduri who was a writer, journalist and stage artiste. She did her schooling from St. Joseph's Convent, Bhopal and was the head girl of her school. Jaya was awarded the Best All-India N.C.C. Cadet Award during the Republic Day celebrations in 1966.

• Making her film debut at the age of 15 in Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar (1963), Jaya’s first screen role as an adult was in Guddi (1971), directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, with whom she would collaborate in several films.

• Inspired by her experience with Ray, she decided to join the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune to learn acting and passed with the gold medal.

• She was picked out to play the eponymous role of Guddi in which she played a schoolgirl obsessed with film star Dharmendra. Guddi was a success, and she moved to Mumbai and soon picked other roles, however her role of a 14-year-old schoolgirl, aided by her petite looks, created the girl-next-door image for her, which she was often associated with through the rest of her career.

• Though she tried to break out of the mould with glamorous roles as in Jawani Diwani, (1972) and a negative character of the heroine faking amnesia, in Anamika (1973), she was mostly recognised for roles of the sort which were credited with epitomising middle-class sensibility.

• In Gulzar's Koshish (1973), Bhaduri and Sanjeev Kumar played a deaf couple who struggle through their difficulties as handicapped people. She described the film as "a learning experience" which motivated her to do social work in future.

• She was noted for her performances in films including Uphaar (1971), Koshish (1972) and Kora Kagaz (1974), among others.

• She first acted with her future husband Amitabh Bachchan in the film Bansi Birju (1972), followed by Ek Nazar the same year. Amitabh had undergone a string of flops, and when most lead heroines refused to work with him in the Salim-Javed scripted Zanjeer (1973), she stepped in. The film turned out to be a hit and gave rise to Amitabh Bachchan's angry-young-man image. Jaya appeared alongside him in films such as Zanjeer (1973), Abhimaan (1973), Chupke Chupke (1975), Mili (1975) and Sholay (1975).

• Following her marriage to Amitabh in 1973 and the birth of their children, Shweta and Abhishek, Jaya restricted her work in films. After her appearance in Silsila (1981), she took an indefinite sabbatical from films and returned to acting with Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa in 1998. Since then, she has appeared in several critically and commercially successful films such as Fiza (2000), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) and Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), all of which garnered her critical acclaim, as well as several awards and nominations.

• Jaya was first elected in 2004 as a member of parliament till March 2006. She got a second term from June 2006 till July 2010 and was re-elected in 2012 for the third term.