Sadhana Shivdasani

Sadhana Shivdasani Biography

Can anyone forget the beautiful face behind the veil of Rajendra Kumar’s Mere Mehmood? How gracefully has she played with Dev Anand for the song Abhi na jao of Hum Dono! Can anyone forget the charming beauty who has sung famous romantic songs of Lata Mangeshkar, ‘Nayana Barse rimchim rimchim’ and ‘Lag jaa gale’ of Who Kaun Khi, Ajee rookar ab kahan of Arzoo and ‘Tu jaha jaha chalega’ and Nayanom mein badra chaye of Mere saya? Definitely not! Sadhana Shivdasani is one among those beautiful faces that stayed fresh in black and white movies as well as Eastman colour. No doubt, she is still considered a charming beauty, particularly in black and white shades of Ek Musafir Ek Haseena and Who kaun Thi. She can be considered to be a mystery girl with unique ‘Sadhana style’ hair and suspense thriller movies like Who kaun thi and Mere saya.

Sadhana is the cousin of Babita, the mother of Karishma Kapoor and kareena. She started her Bollywood journey as a chorus girl of the famous song, ‘Mud mud ken a dekh’ of Raj kapoor’s Shree 420. Her first movie as an actress was Abana – A Sindhi movie. In 1960, Love in Shimla was released opposite Joy Mukherjee, that turned to be a box office hit. Thus she began her journey in Bollywood. Later also, she worked with JoyMukherjee many times. Another musical super hit of this pair was ‘Ek Haseena Ek Musafir’. O.P.Nayyar’s music with Rafi-Asha songs were catchy and Sadhna was brought to limelight.

In 1964, the suspense thriller ‘Who kaun thi’ was released. She was paired opposite Manoj Kumar and the movie is still remembered for romantic Madan Mohan tunes. For the double role she played in this movie, Sadhana was nominated for best actress. But couldn’t win it. Similarly, in another musical suspense thriller Mere Saaya, she did double role. Striking similarity between these two suspense thriller movies is that her double role of sisters was revealed only during the climax!  One more mysterious role she played was for Anita.

She did a fantabulous job for Arzoo, opposite Jubilee Kumar Rajendra Kumar. Tunes of Shankar Jaikishen  and voice of Lata well suited her face and mannerisms. She got her second film fare nominations for multi-starrer movie waqt but couldn’t win it again. Though being the most popular actress of 60’s she couldn’t win any awards. Mere Mehboob, Intequam, Hum dono, Batameez and Do phool ek mali also need special mention.

On 25 December 2015, Sadhana Shivdasani died in Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai.

Published: N/A

Updated: June 13, 2018