Evergreen Rekha turns 58 today

Actress Rekha turns 58 today. Her real name was Banurekha Ganeshan, which she shortened to Rekha.
Rekha started her career as a child actress in a Telugu movie Rangula Ratnam. She was not interested in acting, but the financial problems in her family made her take up acting as a career. She was born to Tamil actor Gemini Ganeshan and actress Pushpavalli. However Gemini declined to be his father.
Her first successful movie was a Kannada film, Goa dalli CID 999, which was released in 1969. In the same year she moved to Bombay for a better career. But she was very vulnerable and men took benefit of that.
Her first Hindi movie Sawan Bhado was a successful movie. Similarly, the ones that followed were Rampur ka Lakshman, Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye and Kahani Kismat Ki. But she was seen a plump, dusky heroine. Much against the likes of her time like Hema Malini and Rakhi, she was sometimes called the ‘Ugly duckling ’.
She then took upon herself. She managed to come out with a slimmer figure.  She was offered the movie Umrao Jaan in 1981. She said that she could see herself in the character, it depicted a girl was kidnapped and sold to a brothel. She later went on to become a famous courtesan and poetess. The film was based on Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s 1905 novel Umrao Jaan Ada. Rekha gave a wonderful performance in the movie. She was also awarded the national Filmfare awards for the best actress for that role.
She married industrialist Mukesh Agarwal in 1990, but he committed suicide, one year after their marriage.
Another important part of her career was her association with Amitabh Bachchan. She first worked with him in the movie Do Anjanne. It was directed by Dulal Guha. It depicted the story of a greedy wife. The movie was a major hit. Later she also worked with Amitabh in the movie Mukadar ka Sikanadar. She played the role of a courtesan in that movie too. The last pairing of them was in the movie Silsila. Rekha played the love interest of Amitabh in that movie. Their off-screen romance was also very much in the news.
Later Rekha acted in some other films like Koi mil Gaya …..and Krrish. Her next upcoming movie is Krrish 3. Incidentally, Amitabh’s birthday is tomorrow (11^thOctober) but he is having his birthday party this evening. However, we don’t feel that the former flames, Amitabh and Rekha will be present in each other’s birthday celebration.