Chhaya Devi

Chhaya Devi Biography

Chhaya Devi was an Indian actress associated with Hindi and Bengali movies. She also acted in Tamil and Assamese films as well.  She has portrayed lead and character roles in around 150 movies and was active during the period – 1930s to 1980s for 5 decades. She played lead roles in the 1930s during her first phase of acting career. She was first cousin of actor Ashok Kumar's wife Shobha Ganguly. Thus she is related to the famous Ganguly family. She passed away on April 27, 2001 in Kolkata, aged 87. Nirjan Saikate (1963) by Tapan Sinha, Hatey Bazarey (1967) and Apanjan (1968) are some of her noted Bengali movies.

She was born in Bhagalpur of British India in 1914. Her family was always associated with the performing arts. She was introduced to films by Debaki Bose in the 1930s. At the age of 22, she made her film debut through Sonar Sansar (1936), directed by Debaki Bose, where she played female lead. But it was the movie – Bidyapati released the following year, which made her a star. The bilingual tragedy released in Hindi and Bengali was one of the finest movies of the New Theatres, where Chhaya Devi portrayed the role of Queen Lakshmi who falls in love with the court poet, Bidyapati. Since then she regularly appeared in the movies of director Jyotosh Banerjee, where she was frequently paired with Chhabi Biswas.

Though she started off as a leading heroine, later she moved to character roles. Yet she is remembered for some memorable roles she played onscreen. She played the supporting role of one among the four widows in Tapan Sinha’s Nirjan Saikate, where the lead roles were played by Anil Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore. She worked in Mrinal Sen’s Raat Bhore (1956) and Abasheshe (1962). She was also appreciated for her negative shaded role in Saat Paake Bandha (1963).

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Updated: January 04, 2016