Dimple Kapadia is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Hindi films.[1] She was discovered by Raj Kapoor at age 14, who gave her the title role in his teen romance Bobby (1973), opposite his son Rishi Kapoor.[2] The film became a massive commercial success and made her an overnight star.[3][4] Her role as a Christian teenager from Goa established her as a youth fashion icon and won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress.[5][6] Kapadia retired from acting following her marriage to Indian actor Rajesh Khanna earlier in 1973, and returned to the film industry in 1984, after her separation from Khanna.[2] The release of her comeback film, Saagar, was delayed, with Zakhmi Sher becoming the second film of her career.[7] Released in 1985,[8] Saagar earned her a second Best Actress award at Filmfare,[9] and she went on to establish herself as one of the leading actresses of Hindi cinema in the 1980s and early 1990s.[1] The early roles she played following her return included the Hitchcockian thriller Aitbaar (1985), for which she received positive reviews, and the commercially successful action films Arjun (1985) and Janbaaz (1986).[10][11][12] During this period, she acted in several films in South India, which she admitted to having made for financial gain and dismissed their quality.[11]
Many of Kapadia's early roles relied on her perceived beauty, and she would struggle to be taken seriously as an actress.[13] She made a decision to accept more serious roles,[14] and won acclaim for her role in the marital drama Kaash (1987).[13][15] Financial success came with films like Insaniyat Ke Dushman (1987), Insaaf (1987), in which she played double roles; the controversial revenge saga Zakhmi Aurat (1988), in which she played an avenging rape victim; and Ram Lakhan (1989).[16][5] She started the next decade by venturing into neorealist art films, known in India as parallel cinema,[17] including Drishti (1990), Lekin... (1990), and Rudaali (1993).[5][18] All these films won her critical praise, and her role as a professional mourner in the latter earned her a National Film Award for Best Actress and a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. She further essayed character parts in Prahaar (1991), Angaar (1992), Gardish (1993), and Krantiveer (1994), which garnered her a fourth Filmfare Award, in the Best Supporting Actress category.[19][20][5]
Kapadia became selective about her roles, and her work over the following decades was infrequent, with substantial gaps.[21][22] She played the supporting part of a divorced alcoholic in Dil Chahta Hai (2001) and was noted for her portrayal of the title role, a middle-aged professor, in the American production Leela (2002).[23][24] In both films, she played women who are the object of younger men's desire, in roles written especially for her.[5][17] Some of her later film credits include leading roles in Hum Kaun Hai? (2004), Pyaar Mein Twist (2005), Phir Kabhi (2008), Tum Milo Toh Sahi (2010), and her supporting roles included Being Cyrus (2005), Luck by Chance (2009), Dabangg (2010), Cocktail (2012) and Finding Fanny (2014).[25][20] While Dabangg was one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of all-time,[26][27] her roles in Luck by Chance and Finding Fanny earned her two Filmfare nominations.[9][28] Kapadia was cast by Christopher Nolan in his action thriller Tenet,[29] which was the fourth-highest grossing film of 2020 and earned her positive reviews.[30][31]
Film
| † | Denotes films that have not yet been released |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Network | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Tandav | Anuradha Kishore | Amazon Prime Video | [118] |
| 2023 | Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo | Savitri | Disney+ Hotstar | [119] |
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
- Adarkar, Vivek (2003). Tomassini, Christine; Schwartz, Carol (eds.). Magill's Cinema Annual. Gale Research International, Limited. ISBN 978-1-55862-459-7.
- Ausaja, S. M. M. (2009). Bollywood in Posters. Om Books International. p. 1993. ISBN 978-81-87108-55-9.
- Bumiller, Elisabeth (1 June 1991). May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons. Penguin Books India. ISBN 978-0-14-015671-3.
- Chopra, Anupama (2014). Freeze Frame. Om Books International. ISBN 978-93-81607-11-4.
- Dasgupta, Rohit K.; Datta, Sangeeta (2018). 100 Essential Indian Films. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-7799-1.
- Derné, Steve (2000). Movies, Masculinity, and Modernity: An Ethnography of Men's Filmgoing in India. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-31287-8.
- Joshi, Priya (2015). Bollywood's India: A Public Fantasy. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-53907-4.
- Mazumdar, Ranjani (2017). "The Legal Unspeakable: Rape in 1980s Bombay Cinema". In Dutt, Bishnupriya; Reinelt, Janelle; Sahai, Shrinkhla (eds.). Gendered Citizenship: Manifestations and Performance. Springer. pp. 163–179. ISBN 978-3-319-59093-6.
- Mubarki, Meraj Ahmed (2016). Filming Horror: Hindi Cinema, Ghosts and Ideologies. SAGE Publications India. ISBN 978-93-5150-873-1.
- Murali, Sharanya (2017). "Finding Femininity: Homi Adajania and Representations of Urban Womanhood". In Iqbal Viswamohan, Aysha; John, Vimal Mohan (eds.). Behind the Scenes: Contemporary Bollywood Directors and Their Cinema. SAGE Publications India. pp. 291–307. ISBN 978-93-86062-40-6.
- Patel, Bhaichand (2016). Bollywood's Top 20: Superstars of Indian Cinema. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-81-8475-598-5.
- Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul (1999). Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-94325-7.
- Siṃha, Hara Mandira (2000). Hindi filmography: 1981–1999, Volume 2. Satinder Kaur.
- Virdi, Jyotika (2003). The Cinematic ImagiNation [sic]: Indian Popular Films as Social History. Rutgers University Press. pp. 140–143. ISBN 978-0-8135-3191-5.