- Shabana Azmi, Doosri Dulhan, India, 1983. Bollywood’s eventual Queen Mother worked for months on the script with Lekh Tandon before calmly announcing she was not available for six months. Furious, the directior started hunting around for a substitute – Rekha Parveen or Smita Patil? Now Azmi was furious with him for for not solving their “misunderstanding” – and went to work as The Other Woman, not The Wife as per usual. Co-stars included Victor Banerjee (credited as Victor Bannerjee), who made his celebrated David Lean film, Passage to India, that year.
- Deepti Naval, Kamla, India. 1984. The Indian stage star Charusheela was always supposed to reprise her Kamla in the adaptation of Vijay Tendulkar’s marathi play about 70s/80s domestic slavery. However, director Jag Mundra preferred a Bollywood face. Such as Smita Patil or Bijaya Jena while his star, Shabana Azmi, suggested Sreela Mazumdar. When Patil voted for another role, Kamla was given to Naval.
- Shabana Azmi, Lorie, India, 1984. The allegation goes that Patil agreed to the lead until the mighty Azmi found out and talked director Vijay Talwar into signing her. There are numerous stories like this about Azmi (and other Mumbai divas), off-set by all the tales of how she helped other Bollywoodites, male adnd female, to fame and fortune.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 3