Smita Patil

Biography
Smita Patil was a leading actress from the 1970s to the 1980s in both Hindi and Marathi cinema. Along with actresses like Shabana Azmi, she was one of the potent quartet representing India's parallel cinema. In a succession of landmark films like Manthan , Bhumika , Aakrosh and Chakra . Patil was also an active feminist and a member of the Women's Centre in Bombay. She was deeply committed to the advancement of women's issues, and gave her endorsement to films which sought to explore the role of women in traditional society, their sexuality, and the changes facing the middle-class ...( show more

) woman in an urban milieu.

Smita Patil belongs to a generation of great actresses, including Suhasini Mulay and the aforementioned Shabana Azmi and, like them, is strongly associated with the radically political cinema of the 1970s. Her work includes films with parallel cinema directors like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani and Mrinal Sen as well as forays into the more commercial Bollywood cinema of Bombay. Patil was working as a TV news reader and was also an accomplished photographer when Shyam Benegal discovered her. She was an alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. In 1977, she won the National Award for 'Best Actress' for her performance in the Hindi film Bhumika. In her films, Patil's character often represents an intelligent femininity that stands in relief against the conventional background of male-dominated cinema (films like Bhumika, Umbartha, and Bazaar). Smita Patil was also a women's rights activist and became famous for her roles in films that portrayed women as capable and empowered. As time went on, Patil moved away from her strictly "art house" reputation and, to the consternation of cinemaphiles, began to take parts in mainstream Bollywood extravaganzas. "I remained committed to small cinema for about five years," Smita herself recalled. "I refused all commercial offers. Around 1977-78, the small cinema movement started picking up and they needed names. I was unceremoniously dropped from a couple of projects. This was a very subtle thing but it affected me a lot. I told myself that here I am and I have not bothered to make money. I have turned down big, commercial offers because of my commitment to small cinema and what have I got in return? If they want names I'll make a name for myself. So I started and took whatever came my way." Initially her embarrassment showed as she mouthed corny dialogue, donned glitzy costumes and struck the archetypical Bollywood dance poses -- but soon her hard-core professionalism won out. In time she was accepted by commercial filmmakers and from Raj Khosla and Ramesh Sippy to B.R. Chopra, they all agreed that she was "excellent". Her fans, too, grew with her newfound stardom. Patil's glamorous roles in her more commercial films -- such as Shakti and Namak Halaal -- revealed the permeable boundaries between "serious" cinema and "Bollywood" masala in the Hindi film industry. Her association with artistic cinema remained strong, however. Her arguably greatest (and unfortunately final) role came when Smita re-teamed with Ketan Mehta to play the feisty and fiery Sonbai in Mirch Masala (1987). Smita won raves for playing a spirited spice-factory worker who stands up against a lecherous petty official.

Smita was the daughter of a government minister and a social-worker mother. Born in Pune, Maharashtra, she studied at a Marathi-language school. Her first tryst with the camera was as a television newscaster. Her dusky beauty and large eyes drew attention. Always a bit of a rebel, she would grin when people complimented her on looking lovely in the saris she sported for the telecasts because minutes before going on air, she would have hurriedly wrapped the sari over her jeans. When Patil became romantically involved with the actor Raj Babbar, a much-married man who eventually left his present wife to marry Patil, she drew severe criticism from her fans and the media, clouding her personal life and throwing her into the eye of a media storm. Overnight, Patil was labeled a "home-breaker" and became the target of barbed criticism. "It was a nightmare for both Smita and Raj and looking back it was ultimately her dignified silence and restraint that becalmed those troubled times. Ushering in hope for a promising, new future -- but that was not to be."

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Actor

Sitam (1991)
Oonch Neech Beech (1989)
Galion Ka Badshah (1989) ... Tulsi
Waaris (1988) ... Paro
Hum Farishte Nahin (1988) ... Roma (special appearance)
Aakarshan (1988) ... Special Appearance
Thikana (1987) ... Shashi

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