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Rekha

1954–

Rekha began in Hindi films at fourteen and was dismissed for a decade as unglamorous before remaking herself entirely - the transformation is one of the industry's standard stories, and she has never been especially forthcoming about how deliberate it was.

Zohra Bai in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar is where the courtesan roles begin, and they lead to Umrao Jaan in 1981, which won her the National Award and is the performance she is measured by. She has worked for fifty years and given almost no interviews about any of it.