Leena Chandavarkar

Leena Chandavarkar Biography

Leena Chandavarkar is the fourth and last wife of Kishore Kumar. She was a Bollywood heroine of 1970’s too, who has done super hit movies with many leading actors of the B’ town like Rajesh Khanna, Dileep Kumar and Jitendra. It’s for her memorable performance in the movie ‘Mehboob ki mehndi’ opposite Rajesh Khanna in 1971 that she is remembered most. The song pictured on her sung by Lata Mangeshkar on Laxmikanth Pyarelal ‘Jaane kyon log mohabbat kiya karthe hain’ is still adored by millions. Another memorable movie is ‘Bairaag’ opposite Dileep Kumar and duet song sung by Mohd. Rafi and Asha Bhosle, ‘ Saare sahar mein aap sa koi nahin’. Same is the case of the comic song ‘Man chale kaha chali’ of the movie Man Chali opposite Sanjeev Kumar.   

Leena Chandavarkar was born in Karnataka as the daughter of an army officer. When Filmfare organized ‘Fresh Face competition’, she became the runner up and it paved her straight path to Bollywood. She debuted Bollywood with Man ka meet in 1968, opposite Sunil Dutt and it was her performance in ‘Mehboob ki mehndi’ opposite the then superstar of Bollywood Rajesh Khanna she got wide acclimatization. Her role in 1970 movies – Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi, Hamjoli and Jawab were also noted. The movies ‘Jaane angaane’ and ‘Mein sundar hoon’ released after Mehboob ki mehndi in the same year were also successful movies.

Though these movies were enough to give a good career start, her career didn’t flourished well and she is always remembered for a few roles counted in fingers in her name. She also didn’t give preference to number of movies and always have chosen only a few that she believed the best. Other movies include Bidai, Chor chor, Honey moon, Ek kuwara ek kuwari, Zalim, Nalayak and Sarfarosh. Sarfarosh in 1985 was her last movie. She took break from industry and became engaged in family life.

About her personal life - Her first husband, Siddharth Bandodkar died due to an accidental gunshot just 10 days after her marriage when she was just 25. During the 6 months while he was undergoing treatment, they became good friends before he passed away. Later she married legendary singer Kishore Kumar who has 20 years older than her. But Kishore Kumar left the world in 1987 and Leena was only 37 that time. Sumit Ganguly is the son born to them.

According to her Diwali is the bad season of her life. She lost both her husbands, mother and brother during the season of Diwali.

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Updated: May 28, 2018