Career
Moushumi Chatterjee was never considered to have conventional beauty, yet she was considered one of the most beautiful faces to hit the Hindi screen in the 1970s. She made her film debut in the Bengali hit, Balika Badhu (1967) directed by Tarun Majumdar. Her debut as heroine in the Hindi film Anuraag (1973) came courtesy of another famous Bengali director, Shakti Samanta. She played a blind girl who falls in love, and her performance earned her a Filmfare nomination as Best Actress. The film won the Filmfare Award as Best Picture. That led to another huge hit film, where played a rape survivor in Manoj Kumar's Roti Kapada Aur Makaan (1974). Her rape sequence in the film is still considered to be one of the most disturbing scenes in Hindi cinema. Her performance earned her a Filmfare Nomination as Best Supporting Actress. That led to more starring roles opposite superstar Amitabh Bachchan in the thriller Benaam (1974) and Basu Chatterjee's film Manzil (1979). She did more Hindi and Bengali hit films and, by the 1980s, she made the transition to character roles of mother and bhabhi (sister-in-law).
Moushumi's personal life has kept her in the gossip columns since the beginning of her career. She married early to producer Jayanta Mukherjee, son of legendary music composer and singer Hemant Kumar. They have two daughters, Payal and Megha. She acted in Hindi films after marriage, which was unusual at that time, as it was customary to act in films before marriage and leave films after marriage. At one point, she was said to leave her husband for film distributor Ramesh Sippy (not to be confused with the director of Sholay (1975)) but then changed her mind and stayed with her husband and their daughters.
In 2005, she was thrilled when director Tarun Majumdar, who had introduced her to films in Balika Badhu (1969), decided to introduce her younger daughter Megha in his next Bengali film Bhalobasar Anek Naam. (Moushumi played a supporting role as cousin sister to Megha. It was also the debut movie of Uttam Kumar's grandson Gaurav Chattopadhyay.) Her older daughter Payal has made a name for herself behind the camera as the creative head at the Prime Channel, which oversees television shows.
In middle age, Moushumi has accepted new challenges as playing a dual role in Tanuja Chandra's Zindaggi Rocks (2006) and crossed over to Canada to act in Bollywood/Hollywood (2003). She entered politics in 2004, even though she has had no experience, but she tried to compensate with enthusiasm and hard work.
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