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Bollywood Actress Nutan
Nutan was a well-known successful actress of Bollywood. She was born on June 04, 1936. She was the daughter of Indian film actress Shobhana Samarth and Indian film director Kumarsen Samarth. Nutan was the eldest child of actress Shobhana Samarth. She had three other siblings, 2 younger sisters and a younger brother. Her younger sister Tanuja(mother of actress Kajol) is also a well-known Bollywood film actress. Nutan grew with complexes, she was termed skinny and ugly, yet her eyes told tales from the depth of the heart and she gave us more than three decades of her life...this is Nutan for you! Her sensitive face, with its angles and planes, was said to be a photographer's delight. Current bollywood actor Mohnish Bahl is her son. She started her acting career in Bollywood at the age of 14. She made her debut with the Hindi film Hamari Beti (1950). Later, she participated in Miss India contest and won the title in 1952. Contrary to the serene image that she projected, Nutan was quite a firebrand. She went to a Swiss finishing school; wore a swimsuit for her film Dilli ka Thug, dragged her mother to court for misappropriation of funds and reportedly slapped Sanjeev Kumar for allegedly making a pass at her.! She even had a Miss India (1951) title to her credit. Her mother Shobana Samarth launched her in Humari Beti (1950). Hum Log (1951) and Nagina (1951) both proved popular but Nutan got her major breakthrough and respectability as an actress par excellence with Seema (1955) where she played a delinquent in a reform home. It was a powerhouse performance. She won Best Actress Film Fare Award for this creation. As a result she proved that the best location in the world is an actress's own face. She followed her success with a romantic comedy, Paying Guest, in which she co-starred with Dev Anand. Nutan's unique quality, which set her apart from her contemporaries, was that she was a thinking actress who tried to perceive the undeveloped motivations of her characters. As a result, a fleeting expression on her face conveyed much more than expansive dialogue. For example, in Seema (1955) we can see the tempests raging and dying in her eyes as the bhajan 'Manmohana bade jhoote' sung by Lata Mangeshkar salves her stricken soul. Lata Mangeshkar has singled out Nutan as the heroine whose expressions conveyed the impression that she was genuinely singing a song. Even though Nutan herself had a beautiful voice of her own, she chose to concentrate on her acting rather than her singing. In 1959, the year in which she rode high with hits like Sujata and Anadi, Nutan married Naval Lieutenant Commander Rajneesh Behl and took a small break when her son Mohnish was born. She sang 'Aye Mere Humsafar' Chhabili(1960). In the 1960s, Nutan formed a hit pair with Sunil Dutt and gave so many successful movies like KHANDAAN, MEHERBAN and MILAN. She gave a award winning performance in MAIN TULSI TERE AANGAN KI. Apart from Sunil Dutt, she also gave great movies opposite Shammi Kapoor and Dilip Kumar. In 1963 she made a stinging comeback with two films--Navketan's Tere Ghar ke Saamne, a refreshing romantic comedy and Bimal Roy's sombre Bandini, boasting of possibly her greatest ever performance and certainly one of the greatest performances of Indian Cinema. Nutan's career shone bright right through the 1960s and 1970s with good performances in films like Milan (1967), Saudagar (1973), Sajan Bina Suhagan (1978), Kasturi (1978) and Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki (1978). She carries the last film entirely on her shoulders even though the sympathy is with the mistress rather than the wife, (Nutan). Gradually, she began being saddled with mundane mother roles, where she performed well in films like Meri Jung(co-starring with Anil Kapoor and Meenakshi Sheshadri and directed by Subhash Ghai) in 1985, Naam(co-starring with Sanjay Dutt and Kumar Gaurav and directed by Mahesh Bhatt) in 1986. For Mere Jung she won a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award. Right into the 80's she maintained her pre-eminence, acting for the first time on screen opposite Dilip Kumar in Karma (1986). Actually, Nutan first starred opposite Dilip Kumar in a film made in 1954 called Shikwah, directed by Ramesh Saighal, produced by Rajendra Jain with music by Anil Biswas. This film was never completed. Unfortunately, she was hardly offered any challenging role in the later years of her career. However, Nutan continued to keep herself busy with her bhajan singing (she was blessed with a beautiful voice and did her own playback in Chabili, 1960), her dairy farming. She died in 1991, succumbing to cancer. With her death, Bollywood lost one of its most sensitive performer ever. Two of her films Naseebwala (1992) and Insaniyat (1994) which released after her death.
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