When Rekha said she never wanted to be an actor: ‘Mujhe toh maar maar ke banaya’

Rekha made her film debut when she was just 3 years old. Over the time, she emerged as one of the most popular actors of her time. But did you know that she never actually wanted to be an actor. In an interview back in 1986, Rekha revealed that she had to ‘force’ herself to do films in her initial years. Also Read: Rekha joins Manish Malhotra for Diwali dinner with Janhvi, Sara

Rekha, who is the daughter of late actors Pushpavalli and Gemini Ganesan, made her film debut as a child artist with Telugu film Inti Guttu (1958). She also appeared under her screen name Baby Bhanurekha in BN Reddy’s Telugu film Rangula Ratnam (1966). Rekha made her Hindi film debut with 1970 film Sawan Bhadon. The film starred her and Navin Nischol in lead roles.

During a 1986 BBC interview, when Rekha was asked about her journey of becoming a superstar, she said, “I was very young when I started my journey. I became a star overnight. I never wanted to be an actor, my mother wanted me to be one. Mujhe toh maar maar ke banaya gaya (I was beaten up to become one). I was a child artist and started working when I was 3 years old. I came to Mumbai when I was 13. Shatrujeet Pal was searching for a new heroine in Madras for a film and somebody told them that there is this South Indian girl who can speak little Hindi but actually I didn’t know the language back then. They came to my mother and saw me. They asked me if I know Hindi, I said ‘No’, then they asked me ‘Do you want to work in Hindi films?’ I said ‘No’ then they said ‘Okay, we’ll sign you for the film tomorrow’.

When asked if she developed an interest in doing films after her debut she replied, “Not at all. It took me 6-7 years, before that I didn’t like what I was doing. Yehi tha ki bas zabardasti kheech kar shooting jaati thi, double shifts karti thi. Mujhe bilkul achha nahi lagta tha (The situation was that I had to drag myself to do it. I had to work double shifts and I didn’t liked doing that at all).”

Some of Rekha’s best works are Gulzar’s Ijaazat (1987), Shashi Kapoor’s Utsav (1985), Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan (1980) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Khubsoorat (1979). Umrao Jaan fetched her a National Award too. Her last film as a lead actor was Super Nani, which was released in 2014.