Shakeela

Shakeela was born in a conservative Muslim family based in Kodambakkam, Madras. Her mother Chand Begum was from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh and father Chand Basha was from Madras.[1] She had six other siblings and did her school education from six different schools in Madras.[1] She was not good at studies and could not complete her school leaving certificate examination, eventually making her foray into films.[1]

She acted in many B grade movies and also in soft-porn movies. One of her big hit films was Kinnarathumbikal in Malayalam, which brought her into limelight and resulted in an unheard-of craze for her from youngsters to the old. She did a few controversial topless scenes in her initial movies, but once she got noticed after Kinnarathumbikal.[3][4] Her B-Grade films were dubbed and released in almost all Indian languages. Her films were dubbed even into foreign languages like Nepalese, Chinese, Sinhala, etc. After she acted in several movies, the soft-porn movie industry in India was colloquially called as "shakeela films".[5]

Shakeela started appearing in comedy oriented family character roles in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada since 2003. She wrote her autobiography which told about her family,and her background, acquaintances with notable film personalities, politicians and childhood friends.[6][7]

In January 2018, she announced her 250th film as an actor, Sheelavathi, would begin production.[8]

In 2002, Shakeela announced that she will no longer act in B grade movies. Shakeela released her autobiography in 2018.

Indrajit Lankesh directed a biopic based on her life. Richa Chadda has portrayed her character.

• Shakeela on IMDb