Waheeda Rehman

1938–

Twenty-four films here, and two of them are the two she won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress with. Both are in this catalogue, three years apart.

The first is Guide in 1965. The second is Neel Kamal in 1968, and it is much the stranger film to have won for: she plays Sita, a modern bride who sleepwalks, and Rajkumari Neel Kamal, a sixteenth-century princess whose lover was buried alive for asking to marry her. She has to hold both women at once without the film ever telling you which one is in the room. Neel Kamal took eight Filmfare nominations and converted exactly one, hers.

Earlier than either, she is Alka in Kala Bazar - the student who tears up a black-market ticket in front of the man selling it, says nothing, and reforms him by accident. That film has another distinction: its black-market scenes were shot at the actual premiere of Mother India, with the real stars arriving, so she is acting in a crowd of people playing themselves.

And she is in Kaagaz Ke Phool, Guru Dutt's film about a director whose career collapses, which collapsed his career. V. K. Murthy lit the beam of light in Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam with mirrors and sunlight bounced in from outside the stage, and she is standing in it.

The later work in this catalogue is the other half of a long career - Janki in Mahaan, Sharda in Maqsad, Trishul, Namak Halaal, Chandni - the mother roles, taken on without fuss by an actress who had been the most photographed face in Indian cinema.

Dates and credits from Wikidata.