Entertainment Report :
Veteran Bollywood actor and Padma Shri awardee Sridevi, who had an illustrious career spanning over four decades, passed away. She was 54. Sridevi, died late in the night reportedly due to cardiac arrest in Dubai, where she had gone along with her family to attend her nephew Mohit Marwah’s wedding. Confirming the news, a source close to the family said, “Yes it’s true. She was in Dubai while some of the other family members came back to India. We hear it’s cardiac arrest.” The veteran actor married film producer Boney Kapoor with whom she had two daughters. She was in Dubai to attend nephew Mohit Marwah’s wedding.
Sridevi’s brother-in-law and actor Sanjay Kapoor has said the whole family was in shock with the sudden demise of the veteran actor. He also said that she had no history of heart ailment.
A versatile actor, Sridevi made her Bollywood debut in 1978 with “Solva Sawan”.
With the passing of Sridevi, Hindi film industry have lost not just a great star.
The Industry have lost the part of our innocence which effortlessly conjured up magic cloaks and invisible superheroes: the spell was cast by Miss Hawa Hawaaii who spun and pirouetted and ‘giraoed bijli’, and created a happy symphony for all times.
When Shekhar Kapoor’s Mr India came out in 1987, and gave us the immortal Miss Hawa Hawaaii, Sridevi was already in need of a makeover.
It was in 1983 that Sridevi made her real Bollywood splash with the pulpy Himmatwala with Jeetendra, a Hindi film with its gaudy Telugu roots fully visible. The Bombay tabloids lost no time in dubbing her, gleefully and unkindly, Thunder Thighs, an epithet that stuck. In the same year came Sadma, the frame-by-frame copy of Moondrum Pirai, in which she showed her actorly chops alongside Kamal Haasan, but it was her singing-dancing-squeaky avatar which was replayed over dozens of films, one indistinguishable from the other, till she fetched up in Mr India.
While films like “Mawaali” (1983), “Tohfa” (1984), “Mr India” (1987) and “Chandni” (1989) kept her at the top in the box-office game, her outings like “Sadma” (1983), “ChaalBaaz” (1989), “Lamhe” (1991), and “Gumrah” (1993) earned her critical acclaim.
She went on a hiatus for 15 years after starring in home production — “Judaai” — co-starring her brother-in-law Anil Kapoor and Urmila Matondkar. It was director Gauri Shinde’s “English Vinglish” in 2012 that marked Sridevi’s comeback.
Her nuanced performance as a middle-class woman, learning to speak English to feel accepted by her family, won accolades, and the film was also a commercial success.
Last year, she was seen in revenge-drama — “Mom” — opposite Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Akshaye Khanna. She shot for a special appearance in superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming film — “Zero” — which releases in December.
