Spring Creek Debris Dam is an earthfill dam on Spring Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River, in Shasta County in the U.S. state of California. Completed in 1963, the dam, maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, serves primarily to collect severe acid mine drainage stemming from the Iron Mountain Mine. The dam forms the Spring Creek Reservoir, less than  long. Spring Creek and South Fork Spring Creek flow into the reservoir from a  watershed. The dam is directly upstream from the city of Keswick, California and the Keswick Reservoir.
The operation is part of the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project.

The primary purpose of the Spring Creek Dam was to collect acid mine drainage from the old Iron Mountain Mine, which was heavily polluting Spring Creek and its tributaries. The dam was built in response to these pollutants that were contaminating the Sacramento River, the primary water supply for millions of Californians. Although the watershed is small in comparison to that of the Sacramento River, the stream is among the most polluted and acidic in the world.

The dam and reservoir, along with other treatment structures built at and below the mine, have successfully reduced the dry weather pollution of Spring Creek by up to ninety-five percent. Problems, though, still occur mainly in the form of large uncontrolled spills from the reservoir. Several concerns about the structural integrity and safety of the dam, both physically and biologically, arose in the 1990s. Emergency releases from Shasta Lake, often in the value of thousands of acre feet of water, have occurred from time to time to dilute massive acid spills from the Spring Creek drainage.

History

Mining

The Iron Mountain Mine, the most productive copper mine in California in at least one point along its history, operated along the banks of two Spring Creek tributaries, upstream from the current dam site, from 1879 to the 1960s. The mine extracted iron ore, silver, gold, copper sulfide ore, and pyrite from a rock formation dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The potential of a mine at the site was discovered in 1860, when two men, surveyor William Magee and settler Charles Camden, discovered an extensive iron ore deposit along one of the tributaries of Spring Creek. In 1879, silver was also discovered at the site, and the mine was begun. The ownership was transferred to Mountain Mines Ltd., a London company, in 1894. At the very end of the 19th century, Iron Mountain Mine took blames for several fish kills in the Sacramento River. Nevertheless, mining activity continued, and by 1928, 600 tons of ore were being extracted from the site per day.

The still continuing problem of Iron Mountain Mine runoff has once been described as:

Events prompting construction
The construction of Shasta Dam and its afterbay (regulating downstream dam), Keswick Dam, in 1943 and 1950, respectively, severely impaired the capability of the Sacramento River to flush away pollutants from the mine. Acid mine drainage flowed, unfettered, down Spring Creek directly into the Keswick Reservoir, depositing contaminated sediment and turning a portion of the water a rusty red shade. Previously, the water would have continued down the creek into the river, and flushed to the Pacific Ocean. The pooling of the water, however, made it extremely difficult for the pollutants to be removed. From 1955 to 1962, open pit mining began on the site. At its peak, the mine discharged 5 tons of iron,  of copper, and  of zinc into the stream per day. By then, the water flowing down the drainage was so contaminated that it necessitated the construction of a holding dam, the Spring Creek Dam.

Spring Creek Dam was begun in 1961, when a company named Gibbons and Reed was awarded the contract. The clearing operations began in July of that same year, and the dam was officially dedicated by the Bureau of Reclamation on September 12, 1961. Construction of the dam began on October 20, 1961, with the placing of the dam embankment, which at least partially consists of acidic sediment dredged from Spring Creek.
Riprap was laid on the upstream face of the dam beginning November 9 of that year. In 1962, a series of labor strikes impacted communities in the Central Valley, also affecting construction of the dam, which was temporarily halted on May 3 of that year. After work restarted on June 26, pervious core material for the dam was soon out of supply, so impervious material was used to complete the dam core.

Eventually, the Iron Mountain Mine closed, but pollution continued and still continues, and in 1983, the Iron Mountain Mine was listed on the National Priorities List. The Iron Mountain Mine is known for having the most acidic naturally found water content on Earth, with samples having up to a −3.6 pH value when tested in the early 1990s, which is roughly 100 times the acidity of battery acid. However, this pH value is only found inside and near the mine, as the average pH of water entering the Spring Creek Reservoir is 4.12.

Storage expansion

The Spring Creek Dam was later deemed "undersized" for the Spring Creek watershed, as the large flows of both natural drainage and acid mine drainage caused frequent uncontrollable spills at the dam. The spills contain many volatile components in acid mine drainage, which include the most acidic naturally occurring (i.e. not in a laboratory) water on Earth. Several alternatives were considered for remediating this problem:
Enlarge the Spring Creek Dam to create a reservoir three times its original size: This plan was considered, but never built, as the cost of it was estimated at .
Partial capping (covering) of the site: The ore body in Iron Mountain was determined to be shallow, so this alternative was considered. However, the recurring high occurrence of fractures in the mountain made this inefficient, so it was also never implemented.
Construction of dams upstream: This proposal called for several dams upstream that would "reduce the watershed by 40 percent", including a dam on Slickrock Creek, a branch of Spring Creek. This plan was implemented, removing the need for the dam enlargement.
Waste rock removal: Rock extracted from the mine was removed from tailings piles and disposed of in a compacted cell. In Boulder Creek, another tributary of Spring Creek, the acidity level has lowered slightly.

Recent history

In 1985, it was found that water seepage into the foundations of the Spring Creek Dam could possibly cause its collapse. Shortly after the discovery, a controversy over the irregular spills of mine toxins from the dam began in the 1990s. Two years later, in March 1992, an uncontrolled, unexpected spill of acidic water rushed from the dam down Spring Creek. This spill heavily contaminated the Keswick Reservoir and threatened the water supply of Redding, California. Despite the fact that the region was suffering from a drought,  of water were released from Shasta Lake, which was only half full, to dilute the pollution. The loss of the water, which was badly needed by Central Valley agricultural users, was estimated at US$18 million.

A water treatment plant was built on a site named Minnesota Flats near the Iron Mountain Mine, using lime to balance the pH of the acid mine drainage. Water is also diverted from Slickrock Creek to the treatment site. Altogether, over 95 percent of toxins in the water are removed by the treatment process. Roughly  of specialized acid-resistant pipeline, with a cost of over US$1 million per mile, are included in the treatment process. Most water flowing directly from the mine has a pH level close to 1; the −3.2 pH mentioned earlier is only found in small amounts. Water is further diluted by natural flow in the tributaries and water diverted from nearby Clear Creek, however, the acidic water still requires treatment.

Hydrography

Spring Creek is a southeast-flowing,  long tributary of the Sacramento River, receiving water from approximately  of land. The creek begins in the Klamath Mountains above the Sacramento River drainage, and flows in a generally south-east direction before turning south and sharply west into the Spring Creek Reservoir. From the reservoir, it continues due west until it empties directly into an arm of the Keswick Reservoir. The creek never actually runs by the mine. The acid mine drainage found in the creek is actually carried in by two smaller tributaries, which are Boulder Creek and Slickrock Creek. The former stream runs southeast from the north side of Iron Mountain Mine to Spring Creek, while the latter stream drains the south side of the mine and also flows southeast into Spring Creek. South Fork Spring Creek is a small tributary that flows west and north the Spring Creek Reservoir, but since its basin lies far from the mine, it receives no acid mine drainage. The inflow and outflow from the reservoir are highly erratic, ranging from  per second to roughly  per second in a particular 10-day period from March to April.

Flat Creek, a small southeast-flowing stream, rises in two forks and empties into the Sacramento River upstream of Spring Creek. The stream receives contaminated runoff from the Minnesota Flats Tailing Pile, but is not nearly as polluted or acidic as Spring Creek. Another stream, Rock Creek, rises in three forks and flows east to meet the Sacramento River downstream of Spring Creek and the Keswick Reservoir.

Dimensions and operations

The Spring Creek Dam is  high,  long along its crest, and  thick at its base. Its crest stands  above sea level. The reservoir is  above sea level at full pool and spillway crest level. When at full pool, the reservoir holds  of water with a depth of roughly . One spillway runs over the crest of the dam on the left bank of the canyon. The spillway is  wide, able to accommodate a water flow of  per second. The outlet works of the dam are located at the base, and can accommodate a water flow of  per second. The Spring Creek Powerplant downstream of the dam generates up to 180,000 kilowatts.

Spring Creek Powerplant

The Spring Creek Powerplant is located at the base of the Spring Creek Dam, and is actually supplied by flow from Whiskeytown Lake. The lake, formed by Whiskeytown Dam, is on Clear Creek, a drainage downstream along the Sacramento River from Spring Creek. Both streams run east into the river. The power plant was completed and began operations in 1964, with a capacity of 150,000 kW. The capacity was later upgraded to 180,000 kW. The plant is a peaking power plant with two separate generators, generating power for operations and distributing excess power to the local power grid. Water from Whiskeytown Lake is diverted through the Spring Creek Tunnel, a conduit roughly  long and  in diameter.

The Bureau of Reclamation gives a detailed report on the specifications of the generating plant:

Spring Creek Reservoir

Spring Creek Reservoir is the artificial lake formed behind the dam. The reservoir is used mostly for flood control storage, and is rarely filled to its  capacity. During the dry season, water from Spring Creek pools in a small, stagnant pond retained behind the dam, depositing contaminated sediment and acidic mine waste in the reservoir space. When flows from the Shasta Dam, upstream on the Sacramento River, are sufficient to flush contaminated water away, water held in the reservoir is released through the outlet works into the Keswick Reservoir and the Sacramento River. Despite this operation strategy, the reservoir was eventually deemed inadequate for the watershed, and can be filled to capacity by a single heavy storm event. Uncontrollable spills frequently poured into the Sacramento River during floods, through the crest spillway of the dam, which lacks gates. As a result, numerous fish kills have occurred during these sudden releases of contaminants, a major one of which was in 1969. Due to this consistent acid pollution from the reservoir, most large fish spawn downstream of Red Bluff Diversion Dam, a dam also on the Sacramento River near Red Bluff, California.

Spillway and outlet works

The Spring Creek Dam is able to release up to  of water per second from the Spring Creek Reservoir, through a crest spillway and outlet works. The spillway begins on the left bank of the dam at elevation , and drops roughly  in vertical distance down the face of the dam into a stilling basin, before flowing into Spring Creek and into the Sacramento River. It is roughly  wide and can carry  per second. The outlet works tunnel through the dam from an elevation much lower than that of the spillway; the conduit terminates at a culvert exit, a design commonly seen on storm drains but rarely seen on dams, at the base of the dam. The maximum capacity of the outlet works is  per second.

See also

List of dams and reservoirs in California
List of United States Bureau of Reclamation dams

References

Further reading
Suter, Glenn W. Aquatic toxicology and environmental fate, page 196. ASTM International, 1989
West's federal supplement, First Series, pages 1253 and 1261. University of California, 1998.
Journal, pages 988, 991–993. American Water Works Association, 1965.
Hinchiff, Dave. Performance Parameters for Spring Creek Debris Dam. Bureau of Reclamation, 1997.
Vallero, Daniel A. Paradigms Lost, pages 342–344. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005.
International Association for Hydraulic Research. Environmental and coastal hydraulics, pages 21–24 (section Spring Creek Dam). American Society of Civil Engineers, 1997.

External links
NOAA photo gallery of Spring Creek, Iron Mountain Mine, and Spring Creek Dam
EPA Iron Mountain Mine Case Study
Acid Runoff from Iron Mountain Mine Superfund Site
Drought Impacts on Fish, Wildlife and Recreation in Northern California (Spring Creek Dam Section)
Iron Mountain Mine and Spring Creek Watershed Photo Tour
Spring Creek Powerplant Performance Data
History of the Trinity River Division

Dams in California
Buildings and structures in Shasta County, California
United States Bureau of Reclamation dams
Dams completed in 1963
Tailings dams
Embankment dams
Central Valley Project
Mining in California
1963 establishments in California

Spring Creek Dam


The Baureihe E 40 is a German Standard electric locomotive (German: Einheits-Elektrolokomotive) commissioned by the Deutsche Bundesbahn in 1955, designed for freight trains. Since the 1968 renumbering, it is listed as Class 140 and Class 139.

Development

In 1950, the Deutsche Bundesbahn introduced two general types of electric locomotives with standardised components: A twelve-wheel (UIC: Co'Co') freight train locomotive as successor for the class E 94 and an eight-wheel (UIC: Bo'Bo') general purpose electric locomotive as successor for the class E 44. A new feature was that the driver was seated, whereas formerly they had to stand.

During the construction period the speed requirement for a general purpose locomotive (working title E 46, then changed to class E 10) was increased to that point that the layout was one for an express train locomotive. Two types were not found sufficient to cover all needs, so the Einheits-Elektrolokomotiven program was changed to four general types: Light passenger train locomotive (class E 41), express train locomotive (class E 10), freight train locomotive class E 40 and heavy freight train locomotive (class E 50). All four classes were designed to share as many components as possible.

Production and design of Class E 40

The class E 40 basically is a class E 10 without electric brake, altered gear ratio for lower speed and correspondingly higher tractive effort along with additional minor changes.

As all other types of the Einheitslokomotiven program the class E 40 had welded bogies with central pins. Instead the formerly used axle hung motors it used a quill drive with a circular rubber spring as a connecting element ("Gummiringfeder" in German) reducing unsprung mass. The control unit had 28 power settings.

879 units were built, making it the Einheitslokomotive (standard locomotive) of its era.

The original speed was 100 km/h, this was enhanced to 110 km/h in 1969 in order to allow better usability also for commuter trains. A sub-series, known as 140.8, were equipped for push-pull train operation.

In 1968 class E 40 was renumbered to class 140.

Subclass E 40.11
Starting in 1959, 31 locomotives were equipped with electrical brakes (as all class E 10 units were) for the ramp near Erkrath-Hochdahl between Düsseldorf and Wuppertal and the Höllentalbahn in southern Germany. Nowadays these engines are in service around Munich, with recent services to Austria, where the electric brake is very useful. In the beginning of the 1990s some additional class 139 (as they were renumbered in 1968) were built by equipping class 110 units with class 140 bogies and gearboxes from class 110 units pulled out of service.

Both class 140 and class 139 are being replaced by newer constructions such as class 145, class 185 and class 189. It is widely expected that the last units will be scrapped before 2010, though the higher than expected increase in railway freight traffic has created some traction shortages, thus some class 140 units are being overhauled.

External links

 E 40 profile and pictures on Trainspo

E 40
Electric locomotives of Germany
15 kV AC locomotives
Bo′Bo′ locomotives
AEG locomotives
Brown, Boveri & Cie locomotives
Henschel locomotives
Krauss-Maffei locomotives
Krupp locomotives
Siemens locomotives
Railway locomotives introduced in 1957
Standard gauge locomotives of Germany
Freight locomotives

DB Class E 40


National Football League (Abbreviation NFL) ek American sports league hai aur isse shamil hai 32 team. Isme American football khela jata hai. Ek team mein 53 khiladi hote hai. 1550 players hote hai aur inka draft/selection har saal hota hai. Zyada tar log United States of America se Hote hai.

Commissioner: Roger Goodell

Shamil teams: Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, New York Jets, San Francisco 49ers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Kansas City Chiefs, New England Patriots, Las Vegas Raidors, Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos,  Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington Commanders, Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts, Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys, New Orlean Saints, Los Angeles Rams, Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns, Los Angeles Charges, Atlanta Falcons, Jacksonville Jaguars, Atlanta Falcons, Tennessee Titans

Trophy: Vince Lombardi (Jitnee teams ke khiladi ko unka khud ke ring di jaati hai)

Positions: Offensive Linesmen, Quaterback, Running Back, Fullback, Tight End, Wide Receiver

Ill bhi dekho
National Basketball Association (NBA)

WWE

FIFA
N
Sports

NFL


Pafama, short for Papierfarbenmalerei, is a 1922 painting by Croatian painter Josip Seissel. This painting is the first known abstract composition in Croatian art. It is currently in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb.

Name
Word Pafama is an abbreviation of the German PApier-FArben-MAlerei, () which is a word from zenitism vocabulary, meaning that the artist focuses on the painting process and materials, a radical approach at the beginning of the third decade of the 20th century.

Description
This is a square painting of small dimensions whose center is dominated by multi-colored geometric elements on a black background. It is based on the principles of suprematism and is reduced to primary geometric shapes - triangle, rectangle, polygon and cone. In addition, it is reduced to the primary colors - red, yellow, blue and their derivatives which are projected on a black background.

The painting is characterized by structural imaging techniques and is synonymous with European avant-garde art at the time. The painting marks the appearance of avant-garde art in Croatia and leaves lasting effects on the Croatian art in the 20th century and especially in the 1950s and 1960s, when neo-constructivism trends were formed. Its size is 17x17 cm.

References

Croatian paintings
1922 paintings
Avant-garde art
Suprematism (art movement)
Surrealist paintings

Pafama (Seissel)


Gregory Carroll (July 9, 1977, Des Moines, Washington — July 2, 2013, Seattle) was an American tenor who had an active international career in operas and concerts during the early 21st century. In 2009 he won both second place and the Wagner Prize in the Irene Dalis International Vocal Competition. That same year he was awarded the Metropolitan Opera's Zimmerman Career Grant. In 2010 he was the recipient of William O. Cord Memorial Grant from the Wagner Society of Northern California.

Life and career
Carroll earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Western Washington University and Master of Music degree in vocal performance from the University of Washington. He then trained at the San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program. He made his professional opera debut in 2010 as Canio in Pagliacci with the Spokane Opera. Later that year he appeared as Bacchus in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos with the Seattle Opera, Rodolfo in Verdi's Luisa Miller with the Puget Sound Opera, and sang Canio again for his debut with Opera Cleveland.

In 2011 Carroll sang Rodolfo again for his debut with Chautauqua Opera, performed Canio with Opera Lyra Ottawa, and gave his first performance outside the United States as the First Armed Man in The Magic Flute with the Canadian Opera Company. In 2012 he made his debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Radamès in Verdi's Aida and sang the same role for his European debut at the Norwegian National Opera. He also returned that year to the Chautauqua Opera as Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and made his debut at the Portland Opera as Alfred in Die Fledermaus.

Carroll died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 35 in Seattle. Opera News magazine described him "as an extremely promising heldentenor".

References

External links
Official Website of Gregory Carroll

1977 births
2013 deaths
American operatic tenors
University of Washington School of Music alumni
Western Washington University alumni
People from Des Moines, Washington
Singers from Washington (state)
Classical musicians from Washington (state)
21st-century American opera singers
21st-century American male opera singers

Gregory Carroll (tenor)


Luis Russell (August 5, 1902 – December 11, 1963) was a pioneering Panamanian jazz pianist, orchestra leader, composer, and arranger.

Career
Luis Carl Russell was born on Careening Cay, near Bocas del Toro, Panama, in a family of African-Caribbean ancestry. His father was a music teacher, and Russell learned to play guitar, piano, and violin. He had begun playing professionally, accompanying silent films by 1917 and later at a casino in Colón, Panama.

In 1919, he won $3,000 in a lottery and used it to move to the United States, with his mother and sister, settling in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he worked as a pianist. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1925 and worked with Doc Cook and King Oliver. The Oliver band moved to New York City, and Russell left to form his own band. By 1929, Russell's band became one of the leading jazz groups in New York City. It had several former Oliver sidemen. Performers in his band included trumpeter Red Allen, trombonist J. C. Higginbotham, and alto saxophonist Albert Nicholas. Louis Armstrong took over the band in 1935.

Between 1926 and 1934, Russell recorded 38 sides (mostly using his own name), plus those issued under Red Allen (1929) and a handful where Armstrong led his band. After the OKeh contract ended in September 1930, Russell recorded a handful of sessions for Melotone, Brunswick and Victor. After no recordings under his name between late 1931 and late 1934, Russell recorded a session for ARC (Melotone, Perfect, Oriole, Banner, Romeo) in 1934, which yielded six sides (three featured Sonny Woods's novelty vocals, one featured the vocal group the Palmer Brothers).

The band returned to Russell's name, while Armstrong played in California and Europe in the early 1930s; Russell and Armstrong were reunited in 1935. That same year, Armstrong took over the orchestra altogether, and for the next eight years they functioned as back-up band for Armstrong, with Russell acting as the musical director.

Russell led a new band from 1943 to 1948 that played at the Savoy and Apollo and made a few recordings. These included his 1946 version of the pop standard, "The Very Thought of You". In 1948, Russell retired from music and opened a notions shop, with irregular band gigs and teaching music on the side.  In 1959, he visited Panama where he gave a piano recital of classical music.

He died in New York City at the age of 61.  His daughter, Catherine Russell, is a jazz singer.

Selected discography
As leader
 The Luis Russell Story 1929–1934 (Retrieval Records, 2000/2006) 2-CD
 Saratoga Shout (ASV Living Era, 2007)
 At The Cats Swing Ball (Dot Time Records, 2023)

With Louis Armstrong
 Louis & Luis, 1929–1940 (ASV Living Era, 1992)

References

External links
Luis Russell at RedHotJazz.com

1902 births
1963 deaths
American jazz bandleaders
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
Big band bandleaders
Big band pianists
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Jazz musicians from New Orleans
Swing pianists
Manor Records artists
20th-century American pianists
Panamanian emigrants to the United States
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians

Luis Russell


A General Theory of Love is a book about the science of human emotions and biological psychiatry written by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon, psychiatry professors at the University of California, San Francisco, and first published by Random House in 2000.  It has since been reissued twice, with new editions appearing in 2001 and 2007.

Overview
The book examines the phenomenon of love and human connection from a combined scientific and cultural perspective. It attempts to reconcile the language and insights of humanistic inquiry and cultural wisdom (literature, song, poetry, painting, sculpture, dance and philosophy) with the more recent findings of social science, neuroscience and evolutionary biology.  Presenting scientific facts and hypotheses through engaging prose, A General Theory of Love has been compared to the work of Steven Pinker and Oliver Sacks.  Since its first publication, the book has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Latvian, Croatian, and Persian.

Contents
The book surveys scientific understanding of emotions and particularly intimacy and love, from Freud through modern neuroscience, with a focus on the emerging understanding of the limbic brain and the development of personality.    The authors put forward the idea that our nervous systems are not separate or self-contained; beginning in earliest childhood, the areas of our brain identified as the limbic system (hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex) is affected by those closest to us (limbic resonance) and synchronizes with them (limbic regulation) in a way that has profound implications for personality and lifelong emotional health.  The authors maintain that various forms of therapy are effective not so much by virtue of their underlying theory or methodology, but to the degree to which the therapist is able to empathetically modify these set patterns (limbic revision).  The authors go on to examine how many aspects of our society and social institutions have been constructed in a way that is incompatible with our innate biology, which gives rise to individual and social pathologies.

Critical reception
A General Theory of Love received generally positive reviews, including Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, the Washington Post, and the San Francisco Examiner.
It reached number 5 slot on the San Francisco Chronicle's Non-Fiction best seller list.
However, the book has been criticized for its "convoluted and opaque" prose style, as well as its extensive reliance on the model of the triune brain as defined by Paul D. MacLean, a model that has been variously categorized as obsolete, imprecise or unnecessary.

See also
Affective neuroscience
Limbic resonance
Limbic regulation
Limbic revision

References

External links
Fari Amini, 73; Used Science To Study Love, The New York Times.
American Scientist, book review by Roger Martin.
Entertainment Weekly, book review by Clarissa Cruz.
The Permanente Journal, book review by Vincent J Felitti, MD.
The New York Times, book review by Liesl Schillinger.

2000 non-fiction books
Psychology books

A General Theory of Love


Bhanurekha Ganesan (born 10 October 1954), better known by her mononymous stage name Rekha, is an Indian actress who appears predominantly in Hindi films. Acknowledged as one of the finest actresses in Indian cinema, she has starred in more than 180 films and is the recipient of several accolades, including one National Film Award and three Filmfare Awards. She has often played strong and complicated female characters—from fictional to literary—in both mainstream and independent films. Though her career has gone through certain periods of decline, Rekha has gained a reputation for reinventing herself numerous times and has been credited for her ability to sustain her status. In 2010, the Government of India honoured her with Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour.

The daughter of actors Pushpavalli and Gemini Ganesan, Rekha started her career as a child actress in Telugu films Inti Guttu (1958) and Rangula Ratnam (1966). Her first film as a lead happened with the Kannada movie Operation Jackpot Nalli C.I.D 999 (1969). Her Hindi debut with Sawan Bhadon (1970) established her as a rising star, but despite the success of several of her early films, she was often panned in the press for her looks and weight. Motivated by criticism, she started working on her appearance and put effort into improving her acting technique and command of the Hindi language, resulting in a well-publicised transformation. Early recognition in 1978 for her performances in Ghar and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar marked the beginning of the most successful period of her career, and she was one of Hindi cinema's leading stars through most of the 1980s and early 1990s.

For her performance in the comedy Khubsoorat (1980), Rekha received her first Filmfare Award for Best Actress. She followed it with roles in Baseraa (1981), Ek Hi Bhool (1981), Jeevan Dhaara (1982) and Agar Tum Na Hote (1983). While mostly prolific in popular Hindi cinema, during this time she ventured into parallel cinema, a movement of neo-realist arthouse films. These films included dramas such as Kalyug (1981), Vijeta (1982) and Utsav (1984), and her portrayal of a classical courtesan in Umrao Jaan (1981) won her the National Film Award for Best Actress. After a short setback in the mid 1980s, she was among the actresses who led a new trend of women-centred revenge films, starting with Khoon Bhari Maang (1988), for which she won a second Best Actress award at Filmfare.

Her work was much less prolific in subsequent decades. Her roles in early 1990s mostly met with lukewarm reviews. In 1996, she played against type in the role of an underworld don in the action thriller Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi (1996), for which she won a third Filmfare Award in the Best Supporting Actress category, and further appeared in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996) and Aastha: In the Prison of Spring (1997) to critical acclaim but some public scrutiny. During the 2000s, she was praised for her supporting roles in the 2001 dramas Zubeidaa and Lajja, and started playing mother roles, among which was her role in the science fiction Koi... Mil Gaya (2003) and its superhero sequel Krrish (2006), both commercial successes. The lattermost emerged as her highest-grossing release.

Apart from acting, Rekha has served as a member for the Rajya Sabha since 2012. Her private life and public image have been the subject of frequent media interest and discussion. Starting in the 1970s, her pairing opposite Amitabh Bachchan in a number of successful films was accompanied by enduring speculation about a love affair between the two, culminating in their starring film Silsila (1981), which was reflective of media projections. Her only marriage to the Delhi-based industrialist and television manufacturer Mukesh Agarwal in March 1990 ended seven months later when he died by suicide. Rekha's public image has often been tied to her perceived sex appeal. She is reluctant to give interviews or discuss her life, which resulted in her being labelled a recluse.

Early life and work

Rekha was born Bhanurekha Ganesan in Madras (present-day Chennai) on 10 October 1954 to South Indian actors Gemini Ganesan and Pushpavalli, when the couple were unmarried. Ganesan was previously married to T. R. "Bobjima" Alamelu and had four children: the Illinois-based radiation oncologist Revathi Swaminathan, the gynecologist Kamala Selvaraj, The Times of India journalist Narayani Ganesan, and the medical doctor Jaya Shreedhar. He had two more children with actress Savitri—Vijaya Chamundeswari, a fitness expert, and Sathish Kumaar. Meanwhile, Pushpavalli had two children (Babuji and Rama) from her earlier marriage to the lawyer I. V. Rangachari. Ganesan and Pushpavalli had another daughter, Radha (born 1955). Nagaprasad and the actress Shubha are her cousins, while Vedantam Raghavayya and his wife Suryaprabha are her uncle and aunt, respectively. Rekha's mother tongue is Telugu, and she is fluent in Tamil, Hindi and English, having revealed she thinks in the latter.

Rekha did not reveal her family background until mid-1970s. During her unstable childhood, her relationship with her father Ganesan was poor. Ganesan did not want to recognize her as his daughter and give her a living. He rarely met both of his children with Pushpavalli, who subsequently married K. Prakash, a cinematographer from Madras, and she legally changed her name to K. Pushpavalli. She gave birth to two more children, Dhanalakshmi (who later married to the actor Tej Sapru) and the dancer Seshu (died 21 May 1991). Due to her mother's hectic acting schedule at the time, Rekha would often stay with her grandmother. Asked in an interview by Simi Garewal about her father, Rekha believed he was never even aware of her existence. She recalled that her mother often spoke about him and added that despite never having lived with him, she felt his presence all through. Even so, the relationship started to improve five years after Pushpavalli died in 1991. He told a Cine Blitz interviewer of his happiness about this and stated, "Rekha and I have such a good rapport. We are really close." He died in 2005.

Rekha was one year old when she played a small role in the Telugu-language drama Inti Guttu. Directed by Vedantam Raghavayya, the film was released in late 1958 and became a commercial success. She was enrolled at a kindergarten when she was at the age of three and next joined the Presentation Convent School in Madras during her adolescence. She also met Narayani, Ganesan and Aramelu's second daughter, at the school when the latter was around nine or ten years old. Always an awkward and lonely girl, she admitted that she experienced childhood obesity. In a 1990 interview to The Illustrated Weekly of India, she called herself as "the fattest girl in the school". In this period, she developed a love for dances and sports, although never participated in them due to her weight. Because of this, she was bullied by many of her schoolmates, who called her lotta (Tamil for "bastard"). Rekha, describing herself as a "firm believer" in God and destiny, used to spend her time at the school's chapel. Another brief screen role came with the release of Rangula Ratnam (1966)—a political satire which was popular among the audience—co-starring Pushpavalli and sister Radha.

According to her biographer Yasser Usman, Rekha was asked by Pushpavalli to start an acting career when their family faced financial troubles in 1968, as the latter was sure that it would help them. Although never had interest for acting, Rekha (who was initially aspired to be a flight attendant) obeyed her desire and, at the age of 13 to 14—while she was in ninth grade—she dropped out from school to start a full-time career in acting; she later regretted not having completed her education. A protective sister, she did not allow her younger sister Radha to join her, because she wanted Radha to finish hers.

Film career

Early roles (1968–1970)

In late 1968, the Nairobi-based businessman Kuljeet Pal visited Gemini Studios to search a newcomer for his new project Anjana Safar (an adaption of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines). He spotted Rekha at the studio and cast her as the film's second female lead after Vanisri. Pal went to Pushpavalli's house to give Rekha a screen test, dictating a number of sentences in Hindi, which were rewrote by Rekha in Latin script, and then told her to memorize it. A few moments later, Rekha said the sentences completely and Pal was impressed of her native Hindi-speaker-like voice. He gave her a five-year contract to star in four films from him and his brother Shatrujeet Pal each.

Rekha moved to Bombay (present-day Mumbai) in 1969 and rented a room at the Hotel Ajanta in the city's neighbourhood Juhu, with Pal paying off the fee. Also that year, she announced her debut to public and the media, and the successful Kannada film Operation Jackpot Nalli C.I.D 999 with Dr. Rajkumar, where she features as a lead for the first time, was released. In Anjana Safar, directed by Raja Nawathe, she played Sunita, a woman forced by her father to travel to Africa in search of a hidden treasure. She was paid  for her work.

Since her mother fell ill at the time, Rekha was accompanied by her aunt to the shooting, which started in August that year at Mehboob Studio. A controversy arose around a kissing scene featuring Rekha and male lead Biswajit Chatterjee, of which she was not notified as Nawathe wanted to maintain her natural reaction. In later years, Rekha complained at having been tricked into the scene. The film ran into censorship problems and would not be released until 1979, when it was retitled Do Shikaari. The kissing scene made it to the cover of the Asian edition of Life magazine in April 1970. This prompted the American journalist James Shephard to travel to India to interview Rekha, which she saw as an opportunity to boost her career and express her complaint. Do Shikaari underperformed at the box office.

Soon after her move in 1969 to Bombay, Rekha was signed by the producer and director Mohan Sehgal for his film, Sawan Bhadon, and the filming started on 11 October. He cast her as Chanda, a village girl who does not receive approval from her parents to marry her lover (Navin Nischol). Although her hair was already long and thick, Sehgal forced her to wear a wig. Hence, it did not fit on her hair and her hairdressers had to shave her hair to almost bald. She was not fluent in Hindi at the time and most of the film's crew mocked her for having South Indian background. Marking her Hindi debut, Sawan Bhadon was released in September 1970 and became a commercial success. Film reviewers scorned her looks, but complimented her confidence and comic timing in the film. Manoj Das believed that "embarrassment" was shown on Nischol's face in every scenes with Rekha, and Film World magazine noted the film's success was a breakthrough for her career. Amma Kosam, a Telugu drama from the director Kolli Pratyagatma, was released in the end of the year, and she dedicated it to her mother.

Career fluctuations in the 1970s (1971–1977)
Rekha subsequently got several offers but nothing of substance, as her roles were mostly just of a glamour girl. She was highly prolific during the decade, working on average in ten films a year, most of which were deemed potboilers and failed to propel her career forward in terms of roles and appreciation. She appeared in several commercially successful films at the time, including Raampur Ka Lakshman (1972), Kahani Kismat Ki (1973), and Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye (1974), yet she was not regarded for her acting abilities and—according to the author Tejaswini Ganti—"the industry was surprised by her success as her dark complexion, plump figure, and garish clothing contradicted the norms of beauty prevalent in the film industry and in society." In 1975, she appeared in the war film Aakraman as Rakesh Roshan's wife Sheetal, a role Qurratulain Hyder thought was cliché and labelled "a clothes-horse". Randhir Kapoor's Dharam Karam is a drama about a hoodlum and Link magazine noted that Rekha's part is the most pathetic part in it. The mafia film Dharmatma was her only financial success of the year. Directed by and starring Feroz Khan, the film saw her in the part of Anu, Khan's childhood sweetheart.

Rekha recalls that the way she was perceived at that time motivated her to change her appearance and improve her choice of roles: "I was called the [ugly duckling] of Hindi films because of my dark complexion and South Indian features. I used to feel deeply hurt when people compared me with the leading heroines of the time and said I was no match for them. I was determined to make it big on sheer merit." The mid-1970s marked the beginning of her physical transformation. She started paying attention to her make-up, dress sense, and worked to improve her acting technique and perfect her Hindi-language skills for three months. To lose weight, she followed a nutritious diet, led a regular, disciplined life, and practised yoga, later recording albums to promote physical fitness. According to Khalid Mohamed, "The audience was floored when there was a swift change in her screen personality, as well as her style of acting." Rekha began choosing her film roles with more care.

Rekha's first performance-oriented role came in 1976 when she played Amitabh Bachchan's ambitious and greedy wife in Do Anjaane; it would be her first of many appearances with the actor. (They appeared together in Namak Haraam (1973), but Rekha was paired opposite Rajesh Khanna). Her role is Rekha Roy, the wife of Bachchan's character who becomes an established actress. Shooting took place in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) and was finished within a month; Rekha and the other cast and crew would stayed at the Grand Hotel. An adaptation of Nihar Ranjan Gupta's novel Ratrir Yatri, the film—directed by Dulal Guha and scripted by Nabendu Ghosh—was popular among the audience and critics. Film World wrote that she has proved herself as a leading actress in Hindi cinema as filmmakers had started taking more notice of her and become more keen to cast her in their films. She remarked that it was difficult to stand in front of Bachchan, speaking of how she felt paranoid after she knew that he would star opposite her in the film. She stated that he contributed to "dramatic changes" in her life and was a big influence in her adulthood, and described him "[someone] I'd never seen before".

1977 was the third year when Rekha was consecutively gained one commercial success; the action crime Khoon Pasina emerged as the sixth-highest-grossing Indian film of the year. In the same year, she starred in the comedy-drama Aap Ki Khatir, opposite Vinod Khanna and Nadira. Her role as the poor girl won her awards from a number of film journalists' associations. In a retrospective review for The Hindu, the sport journalist and film critic Vijay Lokapally presumed that Rekha's role was challenging for her and appreciated her chemistry with Khanna; a Link reviewer praised its social themes. Film World awarded her with the Best Actress trophy for her work in Immaan Dharam, an action film that received mixed critical reviews. It features her as Durga, a Tamilian labourer who falls for the thief Mohan Kumar-Saxena (Shashi Kapoor). Cine Blitz praised Rekha for proving her talent in acting.

Turning point, stardom, and parallel cinema (1978–1984)
Rekha's turning point came in 1978, with her portrayal of a rape victim in the social drama Ghar. She plays Aarti, a newly married woman who gets gravely traumatized after being gang-raped. The film follows her character's struggle and traumatised with the help of her husband (Vinod Mehra). The film was considered her first notable milestone, and her performance was acclaimed by both critics and audiences. Dinesh Raheja elaborated, "Ghar heralded the arrival of a mature Rekha. Her archetypal jubilance was replaced by her very realistic portrayal..." She received her first nomination for Best Actress at the Filmfare Awards. In that same year, her another release, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, emerged as the biggest hit of that year, as well as one of the biggest hits of the decade, and Rekha was set as one of the most successful actresses of these times. The film opened to a positive critical reception, and Rekha's brief role as a tawaif named Zohrabai earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Filmfare. M. L. Dhawan of The Tribune noted her "smouldering intensity". Rekha recalled this phase as a period of self-discovery. Other films that year include Karmayogi.

Following Do Anjaane, speculation about a love affair with her co-star Amitabh Bachchan generated. Filmmakers at the time saw this as an opportunity to publicise their films by exploiting their alleged affair on-screen, as done in Mr. Natwarlal and Suhaag—both 1979 releases. In Mr. Natwarlal, an action romance set in Calcutta, Rekha portrays the simple, village woman Shanoo to good reviews. The next two years were even more successful. In 1980, Rekha starred in the comedy Khubsoorat by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. In a role written specially for her, she played Manju Dayal, a young vivacious woman who visits her recently married sister and tries to bring joy to the wide family, much to the dissatisfaction of the matriarch of the household. Rekha said she easily identified with the bubbly nature of her character, calling it "quite a bit me". Khubsoorat, and Rekha's performance in it, were well received by reviewers, and the film was a financial success. At the Filmfare Awards, the film was named Best Film and Rekha won her first Best Actress award. The Tribune lauded Rekha's "spunky performance" for giving the film "its natural zing". Maang Bharo Sajana and Judaai, both directed by T. Rama Rao, and Saawan Kumar Tak's Saajan Ki Saheli, brought her further critical attention that year.

Rekha's alleged love affair speculation with Amitabh Bachchan culminated when they starred together in Yash Chopra's romantic drama Silsila. It was the most scandalous of their films together as it reflected the rumours by the press: Rekha played Bachchan's lover, while Bachchan's real-life wife Jaya Bachchan played his wife. The film was filmed secretly during 1980–1981, with Chopra not allowing the media to visit the shooting. Silsila was regarded by many journalists as "a casting coup", and this was the last collaboration between Rekha and Bachchan. The film premiered in July 1981 to critical and commercial failure, and Chopra attributed this to the casting, feeling the audience's attention was strictly focused on the speculation rather than the plot. India Today Sunil Sethi saw that Rekha was "as synthetic as [Amitabh Bachchan's] tiresome chauvinism". Other films starring her that year include Ramesh Talwar's Baseraa and T. Rama Rao's Ek Hi Bhool (a remake of the 1981 Tamil film Mouna Geethangal) both box-office successes. She received another Filmfare Best Actress nomination for Jeevan Dhaara (1982), in which she played a young unmarried woman who is the sole breadwinner of her extended family.

During this period, Rekha was willing to expand her range beyond what she was given in mainstream films and started working in parallel cinema, a movement of Indian neo-realist art films. These films include Kalyug (1981), Umrao Jaan (1981), Vijeta (1982), Utsav (1984) and Ijaazat (1987). Umrao Jaan, a film adaptation of Mirza Hadi Ruswa's Urdu novel Umrao Jaan Ada (1905), saw Rekha in the title role of the poet and courtesan with a heart of gold from Lucknow in the 1840s. Made on a lavish production cost, the film follows Umrao's life story from her childhood as a girl named Amiran who is kidnapped and sold in a brothel to her position years later as a popular courtesan who seeks happiness amid love affairs and other tribulations. In preparation for the part, Rekha, who at the beginning of her career did not speak Hindi, took the task of learning the finer nuances of the Urdu language. Rekha was widely applauded for her performance, which has since been cited as one of her best work. Balu Bharatan of The Illustrated Weekly of India wrote of her "unexplored reserves of histronic strength". She was awarded the National Film Award for Best Actress and earned another Filmfare Award nomination, with Filmfare later considering this one of the most iconic performances of Bollywood history. She later claimed that the film was a turning point.

Among her work in art films, Shyam Benegal's Kalyug is a modern-day adaptation of the Indian mythological epic Mahabharata, depicted as an archetypal conflict between rival business houses. Rekha's role Supriya is based on Draupadi. Benegal cast her in the role after seeing her work in Khubsoorat and took further note of her being "very keen, very serious about her profession". Critic and author Vijay Nair described her performance as "a masterful interpretation of the modern Draupadi". Madhu Trehan complimented her for playing "flawlessly" the part of "a woman of intelligence, strength and a barely suppressed yearning for her young brother-in-law". The 1982 coming-of-age film Vijeta saw her as Neelima who struggles through her marital problems and tries to support her adolescent son, who, undecided about his future plans, eventually decides to join the Indian Air Force. She has since described the role as one of her favourite.

In Girish Karnad's erotic drama Utsav, based on Śūdraka's Sanskrit play Mṛcchakatika from the fourth century, she portrays the courtesan Vasantasena and, for her performance, was acknowledged as the Best Actress (Hindi) by the Bengal Film Journalists' Association. The film attracted wide coverage for its sensuality and Rekha's intimate scenes; she took this as a way to compete with female newcomers at the time. Utsav polarized both the audience and film reviewers with its script and direction; her work and costumes, however, were well received. A review in Asiaweek noted Rekha "dressed in little more than glittering jewellery". In 2003, Maithili Rao wrote, "Rekha—forever the first choice for the courtesan's role, be it ancient Hindu India or 19th-century Muslim Lucknow—is all statuesque sensuality..." In Gulzar's drama Ijaazat, Rekha and Naseeruddin Shah star as a divorced couple who meet unexpectedly for the first time after years of separation at a railway station, and recall together their life as a married couple and the conflicts which brought about their eventual split.

Setback and resurgence (1985–1989)

Apart from parallel cinema, Rekha took on other increasingly serious, even adventurous roles; she was among the early actresses to play lead roles in heroine-oriented revenge films, the first of which was Khoon Bhari Maang in 1988. She won her second Filmfare Award for her performance in the film. Rekha went on to describe Khoon Bhari Maang as "the first and only film I concentrated and understood all throughout." One critic wrote about her performance in the film, "Rekha as Aarti is just flawless and this is one of her best performances ever! In the first half as the shy and not so sexy Aarti she is excellent and after the plastic surgery as the model and femme fatale she is excellent too. Some scenes show that we are watching an actress of a very high calibre here." M.L. Dhawan from The Tribune, while documenting the famous Hindi films of 1988, remarked that Khoon Bhari Maang was "a crowning glory for Rekha, who rose like a phoenix ... and bedazzled the audience with her daredevilry." Encyclopædia Britannicas Encyclopædia of Hindi Cinema listed her role in the film as one of Hindi cinema's memorable female characters, noting it for changing "the perception of the ever-forgiving wife, turning her into an avenging angel." In a similar list by Screen magazine, the role was included as one of "ten memorable roles that made the Hindi film heroine proud."

In later interviews, Rekha often described the moment she received the Filmfare Award for this role as a turning point, explaining that only then did she start genuinely enjoying her work and seeing it as more than "just a job": "...when I went up on the stage, and received my award for Khoon Bhari Maang... Boom, it hit me! That's the first time I realised the value of being an actor and how much this profession meant to me." In 2011 she further stated, "I felt even more charged to give my best and knew right then, that this was my calling, what I was born to do, to make a difference in people's lives, through my performances."

Career fluctuations and short revival (1990–1999)
The 1990s saw a drop in Rekha's success. Few of her films were successful and many of her roles were condemned by reviewers. Critics did note, however, that unlike most of the actresses of her generation, like Hema Malini and Raakhee, who succumbed to playing character parts, typically of mothers and aunts, Rekha was still playing leading roles at a time when younger female stars rose to fame. The first year of the decade saw four releases featuring Rekha, including Mera Pati Sirf Mera Hai and Amiri Garibi, all of which went unnoticed. Still recovering from the recent suicide of her husband and struggling with the ensuing press antagonism towards her, Rekha retained considerable success with her starring role as Namrata Singh, a young woman who joins the police force to avenge her husband's death in K. C. Bokadia's Phool Bane Angaray (1991). The film was a box-office hit and Rekha received a Best Actress nomination at Filmfare for her work, in reference to which Subhash K. Jha remarked, "Khaki never seemed sexier". The Indian Express wrote that she "rides horses, wields swords and does justice to the title in being phool (a flower) and becoming angaarey (burning coal)".

The public's acceptance of Phool Bane Angaray and Khoon Bhari Maang prompted several filmmakers to come with similar offers to Rekha, and she played such roles—labeled "avenging angels"—in several of her proceeding projects to a much less consequential effect. These included her next film Insaaf Ki Devi (1992), and later films such as Ab Insaf Hoga (1995) and Udaan (1997), all of which were major duds. She followed with a dual role of twin sisters in Shakti Samanta's Geetanjali opposite Jeetendra and the title role in the box-office disaster Madam X, in which she starred as a young woman hired by the police to impersonate a female underworld don.

Halfway through the decade, Rekha managed to halt her decline when she accepted several highly-controversial films, including Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love and Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi (1996). Kama Sutra, a foreign production directed by Mira Nair, was an erotic drama, and many felt her role of a Kama Sutra teacher in the film would damage her career. She was undeterred by the criticism. Todd McCarthy of Variety described her as "exquisitely composed" in the part. Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi, an action film directed by Umesh Mehra, was a major financial success, becoming one of the highest-grossing Indian films of the year. It featured Rekha in her first negative role as Madam Maya, a vicious gangster woman running a secret business of illegal wrestling matches in the US, who, during the course of the film, romances the much younger Akshay Kumar. Her portrayal earned her several awards, including the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Star Screen Award for Best Villain. In spite of the positive response to her performance from both fans and critics, she maintained on more than one occasion that she did not like herself in the film, noting that her work was not up to her own, personal standards.

Another controversial film at that time was Aastha: In the Prison of Spring (1997), where Basu Bhattacharya, making the last film of his career, cast her as a housewife who moonlights as a prostitute. Once again, she faced some scrutiny by sectors of the press and the audience for the nature of the part and for some of the explicit love scenes in the film. She later reacted: "...people had a lot to say about my role... I don't have problems playing anything. I've reached a stage where I could do justice to any role that came my way. It could be role of a mother, a sister-in-law; negative, positive, sensational or anything." Her performance earned her positive reviews and a Star Screen Award nomination, with India Today referring to her work as "her finest performance in years". She next acted in Qila (1998) and Mother (1999).

Recognition for character roles (2000–2006)
In the 2000s, Rekha appeared in relatively few movies. She started the decade with Bulandi, directed by T. Rama Rao. The other was Khalid Muhammad's Zubeidaa, co starring Karisma Kapoor and Manoj Vajapayee playing the first wife Maharani Mandira Devi of the King.

In 2001, Rekha appeared in Rajkumar Santoshi's feminist drama Lajja, an ensemble piece inspired by a true incident of a woman being raped in Bawanipur two years before. The film follows the journey of a runaway wife (Manisha Koirala) and unfolds her story in three main chapters, each one presenting the story of a woman at whose place she stops. Rekha was the protagonist of the final chapter, around which the film's inspiration revolves, playing Ramdulari, an oppressed Dalit village woman and social activist who becomes a victim of gangrape. Speaking of the film, Rekha commented, "I am Lajja and Lajja is me". Highly praised for her portrayal, she received several nominations for her work, including the Filmfare Award and the International Indian Film Academy Award (IIFA) for Best Supporting Actress. Taran Adarsh wrote that "it is Rekha who walks away with the glory, delivering one of the finest performances the Indian screen has seen in the recent times."

In Rakesh Roshan's science-fiction film Koi... Mil Gaya, Rekha played Sonia Mehra, a single mother to a developmentally disabled young man, played by Hrithik Roshan. The movie was a financial and critical success and became the most popular film of the year; it won the Filmfare Award for Best Film, among others. Rekha received another Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Filmfare for her performance, which Khalid Mohamed described as "astutely restrained".

In 2005, Rekha guest starred in an item number in connection with the song "Kaisi Paheli Zindagani", in Pradeep Sarkar's "Parineeta". In Bachke Rehna Re Baba (2005), Rekha played a con woman who, along with her niece, uses one scheme to rob men of their property. The film was a major critical failure. Mid-Day remarked, "why Rekha chose to sign this film is a wonder," noting that she is "riddled with bad dialogue, terrible cakey makeup and tawdry styling". This was followed in 2006 by Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamana, a poorly received sex comedy about four female friends and their personal troubles. In a scathing review, Indu Mirani noted that "Rekha hams like she was never going to do another film." In a 2007 article by Daily News and Analysis, critic Deepa Gahlot directed an advice to Rekha: "Please pick movies with care, one more like Bach Ke Rehna Re Baba and Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamana and the diva status is under serious threat."

In 2006, she reprised the role of Sonia Mehra in Krrish, Rakesh Roshan's sequel to Koi... Mil Gaya. In this superhero feature, the story moves 20 years forward and focuses on the character of Sonia's grandson Krishna (played again by Hrithik Roshan), whom she has brought up single-handedly after the death of her son Rohit, and who turns out to have supernatural powers. Krrish became the second-highest grossing picture of the year and, like its prequel, was declared a blockbuster. It received mostly positive notices from critics, and Rekha's work earned her another Filmfare nomination in the supporting category. Ronnie Scheib from Variety noted her for bringing "depth to her role as the nurturing grandmother".

Occasional work; hiatus (2007–present)
In 2007, she once again portrayed a courtesan in Goutam Ghose's Yatra. Unlike the initial success she experienced in playing such roles in the early stages of her career, this time the film failed to do well. In 2010, Rekha was awarded the Padma Shri, the 4th highest civilian award given by the Government of India.

Rekha has also been nominated as a Rajya Sabha member in 2012. Her tenure ended in 2018.

Rekha starred in the 2010 film Sadiyaan alongside Hema Malini and Rishi Kapoor. The film marked the debut of Shatrughan Sinha's son Luv Sinha. The film failed to do well at the box office.

In 2014, Rekha was working on Abhishek Kapoor's Fitoor, but left the film due to unknown reasons and later Tabu was signed as her replacement. In 2014 she also worked in Super Nani released on Diwali (24 October). Super Nani was a family drama, in which the grandmother (Rekha) is unappreciated by her children and husband, Randhir Kapoor. Her grandson, Sharman Joshi convinces her to change. The grandmother 'transforms' herself into a glamorous model.

In 2015, she appeared in R. Balki's Shamitabh, where she played herself.

Personal life and off-screen work
In 1990, Rekha married Delhi-based industrialist Mukesh Aggarwal. Aggarwal was a self-made entrepreneur and owner of the kitchenware brand Hotline. He is believed to have had a long-standing struggle with depression and according to Rekha's biographers, she only found out about his mental health after marriage. He was introduced to Rekha through a mutual friend and fashion designer Bina Ramani who termed him Rekha's 'crazy fan'. Their marriage took place on 4 March 1990, and a few months later—while she was in London—he died by suicide, after several previous attempts, leaving a note, "Don't blame anyone". She was pilloried by the press at that time, a period which one journalist termed as "the deepest trough in her life." Bhawana Somaaya observed the period speaking of "a strong anti-wave against the actress — some called her a witch, some a murderess," but added that soon "Rekha came out of the eclipse once again unblemished!"

She was rumoured to have been married to actor Vinod Mehra in 1973, but in a 2004 television interview with Simi Garewal she denied being married to Mehra referring to him as a "well-wisher". Rekha currently lives in her Bandra home in Mumbai.

She was also famously rumoured to have been in a relationship with Amitabh Bachchan, who was married, after they first acted together in Do Anjaane, and later in Silsila.

Critics noted Rekha for having worked hard to perfect her Hindi and acting, and media reporters often discussed how she had transformed herself from a "plump" duckling to a "swan" in the early 1970s. Rekha's credits to this transformation were yoga, a nutritious diet, and a regular, disciplined life. In 1983, her diet and yoga practice were published in a book called "Rekha's Mind and Body Temple". Rekha has no children. She is a self-proclaimed eggetarian.

Image and artistry

Rekha's status in the film industry has been discussed in light of her change over the years, screen persona, and performances. In 1986, The Illustrated Weekly of India wrote: "There has never been anyone quite like Rekha. Tempestuous woman. Troublemaker extraordinary. A woman once known, never quite forgotten. And an accomplished actress who can often startle you with a truly great performance." Writing for The Tribune, Mukesh Khosla was impressed  with her transformation from "the giggling village belle in Saawan Bhadon to one of country's reigning actresses". Hindustan Times described her physical change and loss of weight as "one of cinema's and perhaps
real life's most dramatic transformations," arguing that "Rekha morphed from an overweight, dark ordinary girl into a glamorous and beautiful enigma". According to critic Omar Qureshi, "the term diva (in India) was coined for Rekha." Mira Nair, who directed Rekha in Kama Sutra (1997), likens her to a "Jamini Roy painting" and says, "Like Marilyn Monroe is shorthand for sex, Rekha is shorthand for charisma". Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali labels her the "last of the great stars".

Respected for her acting prowess, Rekha has been described by critics as one of Hindi cinema's finest actresses. Filmfare described her acting style, writing that in terms of "style, sexiness or sheer onscreen presence, she's unparalleled" and arguing that she is "a fierce, raw, flinty performer with unbridled honesty. Her acting isn't gimmicky." Critic Khalid Mohamed commends her technical control: "She knows how to give and to what degree. She has all that it takes to be a director. There is a kind of vulnerability in her control. She explores when she is acting." Shyam Benegal, who directed her in two movies, believes she is "a director's actress". M.L. Dhawan from The Tribune wrote, "Rekha's flowering as an actress post Ghar and Khubsoorat climaxed in [...] Umrao Jaan. As a tragic courtesan she gave a performance of quality artistry, adopting a much-admired huskiness and despondency of tone. Rekha communicated much with a delicately raised eyebrow". In 2010, Filmfare included two of her performances—from Khubsoorat (1980) and Umrao Jaan (1981)—in their list of "80 Iconic Performances". Her work in the latter was included on Forbes Indias list of "25 Greatest Acting Performances of Indian Cinema". In 2011, Rediff listed her as the ninth-greatest Indian actress of all time, noting, "It's hard not to be bowled over by Rekha's longevity, or her ability to reinvent herself... the actress took on a man's job and did it stunningly well, holding her own against all the top actors and being remembered despite them." In 2023, Rajeev Masand listed her in a similar list by India Today.

Despite appreciation toward achievements in her professional career, Rekha's public image has often been interwoven in the media with speculations about her personal life and relationships. Known for her tendency to shun publicity, Rekha has gained a reputation for being mysterious and reclusive, which drew media comparisons to Greta Garbo. Hindustan Times argues that Rekha has shrouded "her life in an intriguing Garbo-like mystery". According to Rediff, "Rekha's reclusive nature has gone a long way towards building an aura of mystery around her." Rekha rarely gives interviews, and she mostly avoids parties and events. Asked once about her mysterious image, she denied several times trying to live up to this image, asserting it is press-created: "What mystery? The media is the one that creates this image. It's just that I am basically shy by nature, an introvert and fiercely private." Film journalist Anupama Chopra, who visited Rekha in 2003, wrote that while tabloids had portrayed her as "a reclusive woman twisted bitter by lecherous men and loneliness", in reality Rekha was "none of these", describing her as "chatty and curious, excited and energetic, cheerful and almost illegally optimistic".

She was referred to as the reigning Queen of Indian Cinema at the 2012 IIFA Awards held in Singapore, where she was given the "Outstanding Contribution to Indian Cinema (Female)" award, also referred to as the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1999, the columnist-turned-author Mohan Deep published the first biography about her, titled Eurekha!: The Intimate Life Story of Rekha (1999). Another biography was released by the journalist Yasser Usman in 2016 under the title of Rekha: The Untold Story.

See also

 Rekha filmography
 List of Indian film actresses

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

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External links

1954 births
Living people
Indian film actresses
Telugu people
Actresses from Tamil Nadu
Actresses from Chennai
Actresses in Hindi cinema
Nominated members of the Rajya Sabha
Best Actress National Film Award winners
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Women members of the Rajya Sabha
Filmfare Awards winners
Screen Awards winners

Rekha