Dolly Ahluwalia

Dolly Ahluwalia Biography

Dolly Ahluwalia is a noted actress of television and Bollywood. But she is better known as a costume designer of Bollywood. She has received several awards including National award in different categories. In 2012, she got National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie “Vicky Donor”. She played the role of a harsh mother and loveable mother-in-law for the movie. In the movie, her drinking scene with her mother-in-law was quite noted. This single shot which showed the emotional bonding between a mother-in-law and lady made her a household name. She was doing the costume designing of Deepa Mehta’s Midnight Children at Sri lanka, while she got this humorous role. As a costume designer, her most noted work is bandit Queen for which she won National awards in the year 1996.

Ahluwalia graduated from National School of Drama before she entered entertainment industry. As a costume designer, her first few assignments were for theater. In the year 1993, Dolly Ahluwalia along with Aline Gilmore was nominated for the prestigious Genie Award for Best Achievement in Costume Designing for ‘The Burning Season’. Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen was her debut movie as a costume designer for which she got National award. As a costume designer, a few of her noted Bollywood movies include - ‘Aaja Nachle’, ‘Blood Brothers’, ‘Love Aaj Kal’,  ‘Bandit Queen’, ‘Omkara’, ‘The Blue Umbrella’, ‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’, ‘Kaminey’, ‘Water’, ‘Midnight’s Children’ and ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’.

In 2001, she received Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Costume Design. She has been nominated at Genie Award for Best Achievement in Costume Design several times though she couldn’t win. Movies include - The Burning Season, Water and Partition. As a film actress, she most recently appeared in Vicky Donor, Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.

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Updated: January 29, 2014