Sharmila Tagore calls herself “an actress by accident” and that would not be a bad self- assessment at all. Few couples in India have been loved and admired as fondly as Tiger Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore.
Rarely have two altogether different careers of a married couple have run parallel as beautifully as theirs, welded as one. Tiger retired in 1975, but Sharmila continued on for many more years and film analysts are unanimous in their view that no other actress has tasted commercial success more after her marriage, as Sharmila did.
Sharmila’s acting career started with Satyajit Ray’s 1959 Bengali film Apur Sansar as the ill-fated bride of the title character when she was barely 15 and still attending school. Shakti Samanta’s Kashmir Ki Kali (1964) was her maiden Hindi film, followed by Anupama (1966). Samanta cast her in many more films, including Sawan ki Ghata (1966) and An Evening in Paris (1967), in which she became the first Indian actress bold enough to appear in a bikini, and which also established Sharmila as somewhat of a sex symbol in Hindi films.
The song Aasman se aaya farishta had brought the proverbial angel from the skies to the water, clad in a swimsuit. Sharmila’s daring act of donning a two-piece bikini became a trendsetter and made her the hottest Bollywood actress at that time. She also later posed in a bikini for the glossy Filmfare magazine in 1968.
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