How Smita Patil opened Bollywood’s door for Nana Patekar

The late Smita Patil, who knew Nana Patekar from Pune, persuaded a reluctant theatre performer to try cinema. The story is being remembered afresh today, on Patil’s birth anniversary, days after Patekar died on October 8 at the age of 75.

All about Smita Patil and Nana Patekar's friendship

Before films, Nana was devoted to the stage. He had been unwilling to leave theatre, but Patil, who was already working in films, kept insisting. He often credited her plainly, saying that Smita Patil was the reason he got into films.

His debut came in Gaman (1978), a small supporting role in Muzaffar Ali’s directorial debut, which starred Farooq Shaikh and Patil in the lead roles. The film has since become a classic of parallel cinema, and it gave Patekar his first step into Hindi film.

Smita introduced him to filmmaker Ravi Chopra, which led to Aaj Ki Awaz (1984), in which she also starred. Reports say he was first offered a minor, unflattering part, but he went on to play the character Jagmohandas, and the film is widely seen as the one that made the industry notice him.

Smita was already one of Indian cinema’s most respected actresses by then. Born in Pune in 1955, she began her career in the early 1970s as a television newsreader before making her film debut in Shyam Benegal’s Charandas Chor (1975). Her breakthrough came with Manthan, in which she played a woman leading a revolt in a milk cooperative. She became a defining face of the New Indian cinema movement alongside Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri, earned two National Film Awards, and received the Padma Shri in 1985.

Patekar became a household name with Ankush (1986) and earned his first National Award for playing a Mumbai crime lord in Parinda (1989). Over the years he won three National Awards, received a Padma Shri in 2013, and moved easily from intense drama to comedy, most memorably as the gangster Uday Shetty in Welcome. He also became a filmmaker, making his directorial debut with Prahaar in 1991.

Smita did not live to see most of it. She died on December 13, 1986, aged 31, after childbirth complications, having appeared in more than 80 films during a career of just over a decade.

For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.