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Happy Birthday Rekha: From coming from a broken family to ruling Bollywood, check out lesser-known facts about the megastar
Rekha turns 68 today.
Rekha: The 90’s diva turns a year older today
The diva of 90’s Bollywood, Rekha celebrates her sixty-eighth birthday today. The actor has ruled over the audience’s heart since her on-screen debut as a female lead at the age of fifteen in Inti Guttu. Despite going through a few snags in her career and having difficulties due to her unfamiliarity with Hindi, she did not give up and put in a lot of hard work to revamp her image and improve her spoken Hindi. After mesmerising the audience with her enchanting beauty and acting prowess for decades, she even ventured into politics and became a successful politician. To commemorate her birthday, let’s check out some of her lesser-known facts that fans might not be aware of.
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Rekha’s early life
She was born on October 10, 1954. Originally called Bhanurekha Ganesan, she was born to superstar Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan and Telugu actress Pushpavalli. Rekha’s parents never got married. She has a sister, five half-sisters, and one half-brother from her parent's past marriages. The actor is said to share a close bond with her siblings.
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Came from a broken home
She barely saw her father growing up, who refused to recognise her as her daughter. Her mother then married cinematographer K.Prakash. Rekha had to spend most of her childhood days at her grandmother’s house due to her mother’s hectic work schedule.
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Her introduction to the field of arts
She revealed that in school, she was introduced to the world of dancing and sports but never participated in those events due to her weight. She was also bullied in school due to her weight.
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Her on-screen debut
The actress was made familiar with the camera at the age of one when she played a small role in the Telugu-language drama Inti Guttu in 1958. She was also featured in the 1966 film Rangula Ratnam along with her mother Pushpavalli and sister Radha.
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Her turbulent start
Rekha was never interested in acting but she joined it due to her mother’s insistence that she start working to end the financial problems of her family. Later, she got pulled out of school at the age of 13-14 to pursue a full-time career in acting.
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Her first gig as the female lead
After quitting school, she got offered her big role in the Kannada film, film 1969 flm Operation Jackpot Nalli C.I.D 999 with Dr. Rajkumar, where she featured as a lead for the first time. But she got her big acting break in 1976 when she played Amitabh Bachchan's ambitious and greedy wife in Do Anjaane.
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Her hidden talents
Rekha lent her voice to Neetu Singh in Yaarana and Smita Patil in the film Waaris. Rekha is a passionately good singer as well. She even sang two songs in her film Khoobsurat at R.D. Burman’s request.
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Her foray into politics
Rekha is not only a successful actor but ventured into politics too later in her life. She became part of the Rajya Sabha in 2012.