Leena Chandavarkar

Leena Chandavarkar is a Bollywood actor of yesteryears, famous for her cherubic face, innocent looks and adorable smile. Before Bollywood: Born in North Karnataka in the Karwar-Dharwar region, Leena’s initial years of schooling was in Dharwar. She was just 15 when she won a talent competition, and that gave her enough confidence to want to go to Mumbai and try her hand at acting in Bollywood.  Bollywood dismayed her initially. The verdict on her was that she was really pretty and had a very photogenic face, but was too young to be cast as the female lead in a film. The last thing she wanted to do was play second fiddle, so she just bid her time by getting into the ad world. Luckily for her, Sunil Dutt noticed her in some advertisement, and then there was no looking back. Successful Bollywood Career: • Leena’s first film was Man Ka Meet (1968), Produced by Sunil Dutt himself. The film also launched Sunil Dutt’s brother, Som Dutt, who played the male protagonist, and Vinod Khanna, in a villainous role. The film wasn’t a big hit, but Leena got noticed for her looks and acting. • In 1970 she starred in the romantic comedy Humjoli opposite Jeetendra. • She played the role of Shabana in Mehboob Ki Mehndi (1971), opposite Rajesh Khanna. The film apparently didn’t do too well, but it is widely believed that she looked her prettiest. • Manchali (1973) saw her in the role of a rich spoilt girl who hires Sanjeev Kumar to pretend to be her husband. • In Anhonee (1973) she was cast once more with Sanjeev Kumar. She plays a doctor who falls in love with her patient. • In the 1975 drama Qaid she was paired with Vinod Khanna. • The next year came Bairaag (1976), a drama/mystery film, starring Leena, Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu. Though the film had a very powerful star cast, Leena was not over shadowed by any of them. • She played a cop in Aafat (1977). The film also starred Navin Nischol. She refused to dress skimpily, unlike Parveen Babi, Zeenat Aman, Sarika etc. To top it all, the 70s were marked as the age of the hippies and flower power. This implied that the female actors had to be “big”. Leena was petite by any standards, and so she slowly faded away into oblivion. Life outside Bollywood: In 1974 Leena married Siddharth Bandodkar, Dayanand Bandodkar’s (Goa’s 1st Chief Minister) son. He died in a freak accident, and in 1980 she became Kishore Kumar’s fourth wife. He passed away in October 1987.  She has a son with him, Sumeet Kumar. A reality TV singing contest called K for Kishore (2007) saw her as a guest judge for the 1st two episodes. Apparently she will do so again. She has written the lyrics for Amit Kumar’s music album. He is her step son. Some not-very-well-known facts: Leena was under the tutelage of Nargis when she entered the film industry. Nargis helped her to improve her Hindi, western dancing and driving. Leena never tried to learn swimming, as she was afraid that would lead to Directors asking her to don a swimming costume in the film. She was asked to pose in swimwear for a photo shoot, but she refused to get out of the green room because she hadn’t waxed her legs! In Man Ka Meet Leena did some death-defying stunts, including where she ran on top of a moving train that had a 100 feet drop on 1 side.