Jaya Bachchan - Career

Career

She started her career with a supporting role in Satyajit Ray's Bengali film, Mahanagar at the age of 15, with Anil Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee. Prior to this, she had appeared in two Bengali films: a 13-minute short film, Suman, and a Bengali comedy Dhanni Meye (1971), as Uttam Kumar's sister-in law.

Inspired by her experience with Ray, she decided to join Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune to learn acting, and passed out with the gold medal, and she was also picked out to play the eponymous role of Guddi in the 1971 Hrishikesh Mukherjee film, Guddi in which she played a schoolgirl obsessed with film star Dharmendra. Guddi was a success, and she moved to Bombay and soon picked other roles, however her role of a 14 year-old school girl, aided by her petite looks, created the girl-next-door image for her, which she was often associated with through the rest of her career. Though she tried to break out of the mould with glamourous roles as in Jawani Diwani (1972) and a negative character of the heroine faking amnesia, in Anamika (1973), she was mostly recognised for roles of this sort, which were credited with epitomising middle-class sensibility and which she played amiably in films of "middle-cinema" directors like Gulzar, Basu Chatterjee and indeed Hrishikesh Mukherjee. These films include Uphaar (1971), Piya Ka Ghar (1972), Parichay (1972), Koshish (1972) and Bawarchi (1972), with marked sensitivity. By now, she was a popular star.

In Gulzar's Koshish (1973), Bhaduri and Sanjeev Kumar played a deaf couple who struggle through their difficulties as handicapped people. She described the film as a "a learning experience" which motivated to do social work in future.

She first acted with her future husband Amitabh Bachchan in the film, Bansi Birju (1972), followed by B.R. Ishara's Ek Nazar also in the same year. Amitabh had undergone a string of flops, and when most lead heroines refused to work him, in Salim-Javed scripted, Zanjeer (1973), she stepped into the film. The film turned out to be blockbuster and gave rise to Amitabh Bachchan's angry-young-man image. This was closely followed by their pairing in films like Abhimaan (1973), Chupke Chupke (1975) and Sholay (1975).

Her daughter Shweta was born while Jaya and Amitabh were working on Sholay. Following this she retired from films and focused on raising her children. Her last film as a lead actress was Silsila (1981), opposite her husband. During the late 1980s she wrote the story for the film Shahenshah which starred her husband in the lead.

After a gap of film appearances for 18 years, she returned to acting with Govind Nihalani's Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa (1998), a film about the Naxalite movement. In 2000 she starred in Fiza for which she received the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award for her work. She also starred in Karan Johar's family drama Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) with her husband. She then starred in Karan Johar's next film, Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003). She played the role of Preity Zinta's mother, Jennifer, for which she again received a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award.

In 2007 Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, she appeared with son Abhishek Bachchan.

As of January 2011, she is set to appear in a Bangladeshi film titled Meherjaan starring with Victor Banerjee and Humayun Faridi. The film is based on a Bangaladesh-Pakistan love story in the backdrop of 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. Its a story of Meherjaan (played by Jaya Bachchan), a Bangladeshi girl who falls in love with a Pakistani army officer who refuses to join the war and saves her from being raped by other Pakistani troops who do not however spare her cousin Neela and kill her father.