#ShobhnaSamarth( 1915 – 9 February 2000) was a Marathi /Hindi actress who began her career in the early days of talkie movies in the Indian film industry, and continued in lead roles into the 1950s. She started in Marathi cinema. Her first Hindi film, Nigahen Nafrat was released in 1935. She is best remembered for her portrayal of Sita in Ram Rajya (1943).
She later produced and directed a pair of movies that launched the careers of her daughters, Nutan and Tanuja.
A member of a prominent film industry family, which has been in Bollywood since the 1940s, Shobhna was born as Saroj Shilotri to banker P.S. Shilotri and his wife, Rattan Bai.
She was married to director and cinematographer Kumarsen Samarth from Vile Parle(E), Mumbai. They had three daughters and a son. Eventually the couple parted amicably and Shobhana became linked to actor Motilal. Two of her daughters, Nutan and Tanuja, also became actresses. Shobhana produced their debut films. Another daughter, Chatura, is an artist, and her daughter Reshma, who is married, currently lives in St. Louis, MO. Chatura never acted in films neither her daughter Reshma. Nutan’s son Mohnish Behl is also an actor as are Tanuja’s daughters Kajol & Tanisha Mukherjee. Kajol is married to actor Ajay Devgan. Other members of the dynasty include Shomu Mukherjee who married Tanuja.
She and daughter Nutan were estranged for more than two decades but reconciled in the year 1983 before Nutan’s death from cancer in February 1991. At her own death from cancer in 2000, Shobhna had seven granddaughters, one grandson, three great-granddaughters, and two great-grandsons.She was Lux’s first heroine
Samarth won a Filmfare Special Award in 1996.
Florence Ezekiel #Nadira (5 December 1932 – 9 February 2006), commonly known as Nadira was an actress in Indian cinema. She is best remembered for her performance in films in the 1950s and 1960s such as Shree 420 (1955), Pakeezah (1972) and Julie (1975), which won her Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award.
Nadira was born to a Baghdadi Jewish family. She is survived by two brothers, one of whom lives in the USA and another in Israel.
Nadira rose to cinematic prominence with the 1952 film Aan with her role as a savage princess. She did a bold scene in the movie. In 1955, she played a rich socialite named Maya in Shree 420. She played lead roles in a number of films such as Dil Apna Prit Parayee, Hanste Zakhm, Amar Akbar Anthony and Pakeezah. She was often cast as a temptress or vamp, and played opposite the chaste heroines then favored by the Bollywood film industry.
Nadira won a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress, her role as Julie’s mother Margaret, ‘Maggie’, in the 1975 film Julie. During the 1980s and 1990s, she entered a new phase of her career, playing elderly women as a supporting actress. Her last role was in the film Josh (2000). In her longtime career, because of her western attire, her character in most of her memorable movies was Christian or Anglo-Indian. One notable exception can be found in the movie Aan, opposite Dilip Kumar, where she played a Rajput princess. Also, in Shree 420 there was no religious affiliation shown explicitly: her character was named Maya, which is not necessarily a Christian name. In fact, Maya is a quite common name in India, coming from the Sanskrit word for illusion.
She was well paid for her efforts and was one of the first Indian actresses to own a Rolls-Royce.
Nadira was married twice: she first married an Urdu-language poet and filmmaker named Naqshab, then she married a man whom she publicly called a gold-digger. This marriage lasted only a week.
For the last part of her life, she lived alone in Mumbai, as many of her relatives had moved to Israel, staying for the last three years in her condominium with only a housekeeper.
On 9 February 2006, Nadira died at the age of 73 at the Bhatia Hospital in Tardeo, Mumbai, India, following a prolonged illness.