Divya Bharti

Divya Bharti (25 February 1974 – 5 April 1993) was an Indian film actress, whose acting variety hailed her as "the most interesting young actress of her generation" starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the early 1990s. She appeared in Hindi films of Bollywood, as well as Telugu and Tamil films. Bharti played a variety of character types; her film roles along with her screen persona contributed to a change in the concept of a Hindi film heroine.

After spending much of her childhood in Tapri, Bharti began a career as an actress in Telugu films with the 1990 Telugu film Bobbili Raja. Her early film appearances had her play little more than love interest of the leading actors, but she drew attention when she progressed to Bollywood films in 1992 with Vishwatma. Bharti had commercial success with Bollywood films like Shola Aur Shabnam, a melodramatic film that dwelt on her undauntedness. Her dramatic performance in Deewana later that year was hailed by critics and garnered a Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. Bharti had acted in over 14 Hindi films between 1992 and 1993. Throughout her career, she often played strong female characters and, apart from mainstream cinema. Though her career went through certain periods of decline, she reinvented herself numerous times and was credited for her ability to sustain her status. The final years of Bharti's life were marked by personal problems, and a reputation for unreliability and difficulty to work with.

Her career was cut short by her mysterious death on 5 April 1993. The circumstances of her death, falling from the window ledge of her five-storey Versova apartment have been the subject of conjecture. Bharti's last completed films were Rang, co-starring Kamal Sadanah and Shatranj with Jackie Shroff, both released posthumously.