Dharitri Ganguly
Born as Roma Dasgupta, Suchitra was known as Mrs Sen in the Bengali and Hindi entertainment industry. Suchitra joined the film industry, when she was already a wife and a mother. She was the first to be viewed as both feminine, as well as assertive.
Quite interestingly, Suchitra never worked with the great directors of Bengali cinema- Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha, Ritwik Ghatak or Mrinal Sen. Satyajit wanted her for Debi Chowdhurani with the condition that she would not work for others during the making of the film, Suchitra refused it on the ground that her colleagues who made her 'Suchitra Sen' would be seriously affected by it.
Suchitra was known for her tough personality. In the late 50s, once Uttam Kumar kept her waiting on the sets of Harano Sur of which he was also the producer. She did not like that and demanded her name be put first in the film casting and posters when the trend was the other way round. Again, when Uttam Kumar chose films bypassing her in favour of others, she dumped him and went to Bombay to work with stars like Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar as a result of which the release of Saptapadi, another Uttam Kumar production, was delayed by three years.
She is the only one to have refused the Dadasaheb Phalke awards 2005 since that would have needed her to come out of recluse. She quit films in 1978 and didn't make any public appearance till her last day.
Suchitra played the role of Paro in the cult Hindi film, Devdas, the first of many adaptations of the classic novel. The role got Suchitra a national award.