Lalita Pawar

Pawar was born as Amba Laxman Rao Sagun on 18 April 1916, into an orthodox family in Yeola in Nashik.^[2] Her father Laxman Rao Shagun was a rich silk and cotton piecegoods merchant.^[3] She started her acting career at age nine in the film Raja Harishchandra (1928), and later went on to play lead roles in the silent era and 1940s films, in a career that lasted until the end of her life, spanning seven decades.

She co-produced and acted in a silent film Kailash (1932), and later produced another film Duniya Kya Hai in 1938, a talkie.

In 1942, as a part of a scene in the movie Jung-E-Azadi, actor Master Bhagwan was to slap her hard. Being a new actor, he accidentally slapped her very hard, which resulted in facial paralysis and a burst left eye vein. Three years of treatment later, she was left with a defective left eye; thus she had to abandon lead roles, and switch to character roles, which won her much of her fame later in life.^[4]She also played the leading lady with the top heroes of the era like Paidi Jairaj, Trilok Kapoor, Gajanan Jagirdar etc.

She was known particularly for playing maternal figures, especially wicked matriarchs or mothers-in-law. She also notably played the strict but kind Mrs. L. D'Sa in Anari (1959) with Raj Kapoor. Under Hrishikesh Mukherjee's direction, she gave the performance of a lifetime,^[5] for which she received the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award. Also, as the tough matriarch who falls in love in Professor (1962), and the devious hunchback Manthara in Ramanand Sagar's television series Ramayan. She was honored by the Government of India as the first lady of Indian cinema in 1961.^[6]

Her first marriage was to Ganpatrao Pawar, which ended after he slept with her younger sister. She later married film producer Rajprakash Gupta, of Ambika studios, Bombay. Her son Jai Pawar become a producer and worked with her in movies like Manzil. Jai Pawar had 2 sons Sanjay Pawar and Manoj Pawar. She and her husband in Juhu,Mumbai with her son Sanjay Pawar and great-grand daughters Anushka and Aanya Pawar. She died on 24 February 1998 in Aundh, Pune, where she had been staying for a while, due to mouth cancer.^[7]

Television edit

• 1960: Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress - Anari^{[citation needed]}
• 1961: Sangeet Natak Akademi Award - Acting^[10]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lalita Pawar.

• Lalita Pawar at IMDb 
• Lalita Pawar at Bollywood Hungama
• Tribute to Laita Pawar at Screen
• Living the Role- Lalita Pawar The Hindu
• Interview with Lalita Pawar in her last days cineplot.com