Reena Roy, the actress who ruled Bollywood for many years, was born on January 7, 1957. Reena Roy is a Bollywood actress who has played every character on the big screen, from the lead to the mother. Her name has also appeared on the list of the highest-paid actresses of her era.
It has been 20 years since Reena Roy left films. She was last seen in the film Refugee in the role of Abhishek Bachchan’s mother.
Reena Roy, who played the highest number of roles opposite Jitendra in Bollywood films, is from a Muslim family. Saira Ali was Reena Roy’s birth name. Sadiq Ali, his father, was a junior actor, and Sarada H Rai, her mother, was an actress and production manager.
Reena Roy has two elder sisters and one younger brother, thus Reena Roy has four siblings. Reena Roy’s parents were divorced, after which her mother changed the name of her four children from Muslim names to Hindu names.
Reena’s name was changed from Saira Ali to Roopa Rai and her sisters were named Barkha and Anju. At the same time, his brother was named Raja, who was the youngest of four siblings.
Reena Roy Career
She entered Bollywood in the year 1972 with the film ‘Zaroorat’. Roopa Rai changed her name to Reena Roy as soon as she entered Bollywood.
She was paired along with a newcomer from FTI Danny Denzongpa. The movie was rejected by many established actresses because of steamy scenes.
The film was released and failed miserably at the box office but Reena Rai caught everyone’s attention.
For the next 3 years, Reena used to get the role of either the second lead or B grade films. But at that time Reena had to prove herself, so she used to accept whatever film offers came.
Reena Rai got real success in the year 1976 when two of her films proved to be super hits at the box office. The movies were Naagin and Kalicharan.
In the movie Naagin, Reena played the role of a wishful serpent whose partner is killed by 6 friends and the serpent then takes revenge on them. When this film was released, many people did not expect much from this film but proving everyone’s expectations wrong, this film became the highest-grossing film of 1976.
People also did not expect much from Reena’s second film Kalicharan. Directing it was Subhash Ghai, who till then was a flop actor who started his acting career with Rajesh Khanna in Aradhana but never became a successful actor.
The same Shatrughan Sinha used to play mostly negative roles till then and through this film for the first time appeared under the solo lead actor. Reena Roy till then was mostly seen as a B grade film or second lead actress. But by shocking everyone, this film proved to be a superhit film of 1976 and after that Reena Roy’s career shone.
After 1976, Reena Roy became a part of many superhit films. She has done the maximum number of films with Jitendra which is 22 films. Shatrughan Sinha at number two with whom she has done 17 films.
By the beginning of the 1980s, Reena Roy was counted among the top heroines of the industry. Then she was compared to heroines like Rekha, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman and she was one of the highest-paid actresses of that era.
The pairing of Shatrughan Sinha and Reena Roy in Kalicharan was well received by the audience, due to which the producer repeated the pairing of both in other movies as well.
Along with the good onscreen chemistry between the two, gradually the friendship was also deepened and this friendship turned into love. Then there used to be a lot of news of these two in the media and there were even reports that both of them are going to marry each other.
And during this, Shatrughan Sinha surprised everyone and married Poonam Sinha whom he had met during a flight.
It is said that Reena was greatly hurt by this, but Shatrughan continued his affair with Reena even after marriage. Shatrughan’s wife Poonam was also aware of this. And then Poonam had taunted Reena Rai indirectly in the media many times.
Reena Roy marriage
In 1983, Reena Roy married Pakistan cricketer Mohsin Khan. Both were married in Karachi city of Pakistan. After marriage, Reena and Mohsin used to spend most of their time in London where Mohsin also had a second home.
Even after marriage, Reena continued to work in films and hence she used to visit India continuously. But after the birth of her daughter Jannat, Reena took a break from films.
In the initial days, things were quite normal and good between the two. But gradually the relationship got sour and there came a time when Reena felt that it was not her bus to carry out this marriage. And she left everything and went back to India but she did not get custody of her daughter Jannat.
She fought for this in court for a long time. But after Mohsin’s third marriage, she got custody of her daughter and she brought her to India. She renamed her daughter Jannat as Sanam.
Reena Roy and Sonakshi Sinha
Many gossip channels spread the rumor that Sonakshi Sinha is the love child of Reena Roy and Shatrughan Sinha.
It is very upsetting to live with this and in an interview, she had said that such a rumor is not new in this industry. People have earlier called Dimple Kapadia the love child of Nargis and Raj Kapoor.
He further said that Sonakshi Sinha’s face is very similar to her mother Poonam. Because in her early films, Sonakshi was probably given some Reena-like makeup to give her an Indian look, so there is a slight resemblance in the face.
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