Rati Agnihotri

Rati Agnihotri Biography

Rati Agnihotri is an actress of Indian cinema who has acted for Tamil and Hindi movies during late 70’s and 80’s. She is most known for her performance in ‘Ek duje ke liye’ opposite Kamal Hassan in the year 1983. Other best movies of her career include Tawaif opposite Rishi Kapoor, Coolie and Farz aur Kanoon opposite Amitabh Bachchan and Hukumat opposite Dharmendra. She acted in 10 Indian languages including Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Bhojpuri and other Indian languages.

She belongs to a traditional Punjabi family. But the family got shifted to Tamil Nadu due to transfer of job of her father. Bharatiraja, great film maker of Tamil was in search of a new heroine for his new movie and accidently he found Rati Agnihotri. Though the conservative family didn’t agree to it first, later give a nod. She was casted opposite another debut hero Bhagya Raj in the movie ‘Puthiya Vaarppugal’ in 1979. Slowly she concentrated in Tamil and Telugu movies and none was not even willing to believe that she is a Punjabi girl. She did 32 movies in Telugu in 3 years.

As Hamal Hassan- Rati Agnihotri was a popular pair in south Indian movies, they were approached by film maker K.Balachander when he decided to make the Hindi remake of Telugu hit Maro Charitra. It happened to be the debut movie of Balachander too as Hindi film director. The success of Ek Duje ke liye proved milestone in the careers of both Kamal Hassan and Rati Agnihotri and slowly she put her foot in Hindi movies as well. She won her first Filmfare nomination also. All the songs composed by Laxmikanth Pyarelal and sung by S.P.Bala Subramaniyam and Lata Mangeshkar became huge hits too. Her role in the movie ‘Tawaif’ earned her a Filmfare nomination for best actress for the second time.

After her marriage with architect Anil Virwani in 1985, she said bye bye to movies when she was at her career top. Later after 16 years she returned to movies in supporting role. Movies of her second innings include Kabhi khatta kabhi meetta, Pehchaan, Luck, Phirr kabhi and Socha na tha.   

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Updated: December 27, 2017