Happy Birthday - Sharmila Tagore ji

Source:wikipedia
Sharmila Tagore (also known as Begum Ayesha Sultana; born 8 December 1944) is known for her works in Hindi cinema as well as Bengali cinema. She has received two National Film Awards and two Filmfare Awards for her performances.
She led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011. In December 2005 she was chosen as an UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. She was one of the International Competition's Jury Members at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In 2013, she was awarded Padma Bhushan by the Government of India.
Sharmila Tagore was born in Hyderabad, India, the daughter of Gitindranath Tagore, a general manager in the British India Corporation, by his wife Ira Tagore (née Barua). While Tagore's father belonged to a Bengali family, her mother came from an Assamese family, and both of them were distantly related to the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore
Tagore attended St. John's Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School and Loreto Convent, Asansol.She made her film debut when she was a 13-year-old schoolgirl, after which her studies lost priority, and she never finished school. Within a short while, her results in school became very bad, her attendance levels were very low, she came to be regarded as a bad influence on her classmates, and was faced with a choice of either doing films or studying further.At that point, her father advised her to move ahead in life, commit herself to a film career and 'give it her all' in order to become successful. She did as her father advised, and credits her parents for having supported her at every point in her life.

Tagore began her career as an actress in Satyajit Ray's 1959 Bengali film Apur Sansar (The World of Apu), as the ill-fated bride of the title character. She later appeared in Shakti Samanta's Kashmir Ki Kali in 1964. Samanta cast her in many more films, including An Evening in Paris (1967), in which she became the first Indian actress to appear in a bikini, which established Tagore as somewhat of a sex symbol in Hindi films. She also posed in a bikini for the glossy Filmfare magazine in 1968.

Samanta later teamed up Tagore with Rajesh Khanna for movies such as Aradhana (1969) and Amar Prem (1972). Other directors paired them together in Safar (1970), Daag (1973), and Maalik (1972). The pair of Khanna-Sharmila gave 7 box office hits – Aradhana, Safar, Amar Prem, Chhoti Bahu, Daag, "Raja Rani" and Avishkaar.  She starred in Gulzar's 1975 film, Mausam and won the National Film Award for Best Actress. She also played a supporting role in Mira Nair's 1991 film Mississippi Masala. She was the highest paid Bollywood actress from 1970 to 1976 along with Mumtaz. She starred opposite Dharmendra in Devar (1966), Anupama (1966), Mere Hamdam Mere Dost (1968), Satyakam (1969), Yakeen (1969), Chupke Chupke (1975) and Ek Mahal Ho Sapno Ka (1975); Amitabh Bachchan in Faraar (1975); Sanjeev Kumar in Mausam (1975), and Besharam (1978); and Naseeruddin Shah in the Bengali film Mangaldeep (1991).

She married Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, the Nawab of Pataudi and former captain of the Indian cricket team, in a Nikah ceremony held on 27 December 1969.