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1966 - Year of the beach babes - Sharmila Tagore and Mumtaz
The year 1966 was one of the hottest years as the then two reigning queens of Bollywood, Sharmila Tagore and Mumtaz, featured in swimsuits on the cover of Filmfare magazine. While Sharmila featured in the August issue, Mumtaz closely followed her and appeared in the November issue.
Sharmila began her career as an actress in Satyajit Ray's 1959 Bengali film 'Apur Sansar', but it was only in 1964 that she established herself as a popular Hindi film actress with Shammi Kapoor-starrer 'Kashmir Ki Kali'. She was the first Indian actress to wear a bikini in a movie ('An Evening in Paris').
Mumtaz's career had a rocky start. The actress started her career as a junior artist and then was cast as a supporting star in many films. But, she caught the attention with the 1965 film 'Mere Sanam' in which she played the role of a vamp, and after that featured in movies like 'Patthar Ke Sanam', 'Ram Aur Shyam', 'Brahmchari' and 'Do Raaste' among others.
The 1966 story goes like, Sharmila walked into the studio of photographer Dhiraj Chawda, he asked what was she going to wear for the shoot and the actress just took out the swimwear from her purse.
In an interview when Mumtaz was asked about her relationship with Sharmila, she said, "It wasn't rivalry. She was born with a golden spoon. Her first film was opposite Shammi Kapoor ('Kashmir Ki Kali'), and she became an instant star."
"I started with supporting roles opposite Shammiji in films like 'Brahmachari'. Perhaps because both, Sharmila and I, did several films with Rajesh Khanna, the press wrote rubbish. But the fact is, heroines cannot be friends, not then, not now. We didn't do dinners or hang out together. It's always been like that," she added.
Well, we all agree with Mumtaz on this, don't we?
