Smriti Biswas

Bengali-born actress who quit films to marry S.D. Narang; lived to 100 · 1924–2024

Smriti Biswas debuted in the Bengali film Sandhya (1930) and her career ran across four decades, with Guru Dutt, V. Shantaram, Mrinal Sen, Bimal Roy, B.R. Chopra and Raj Kapoor among the film-makers she worked for. Model Girl (1960) was her last Hindi film. In the films here she plays the dancer Lily in Dilli Ka Thug (1958), and she gave up acting to marry its director, S.D. Narang.

Her later years were hard: after her husband's death she moved to Nashik and lived in a one-room rented flat. She celebrated her 100th birthday on 17 February 2024 and died on 3 July that year.