Sharmila Tagore Recalls Her Popular Bikini Photoshoot For Magazine, Says ‘People Don’t Let Me Forget’

Sharmila Tagore on Bikini Photoshoot: My life choices, looking back, have been unconventional

Veteran actor Sharmila Tagore recalled in a recent interaction with her fans that people don’t let her forget the bikini shoot she did for Filmfare magazine back in 1966. She was one of the first mainstream Bollywood actors to pose in a bikini on a magazine cover. For the cover, she wore a black and white bikini. She even opened up about her unconventional choices and said, “My life choices, looking back, have been unconventional. Like the bikini shot for Filmfare, that people don’t ever let me forget.”

As per the Filmfare report, it was Sharmila’s idea to pose in a bikini for the magazine. She had told the publication in an earlier interview, “Oh! God, how conservative our society was back then! I’ve no idea why I did that shoot. It was just before I got married. I remember when I showed the two-piece bikini to the photographer, he asked me, ‘Are you sure about this?’ In some of the shots, he even asked me to cover my body. He was more worried than I was but I had no qualms doing that shoot. Only when people started reacting strongly to the cover, was I taken aback. I was puzzled as to why they didn’t like the picture. I thought I looked nice. Some called it a deliberate move to grab eyeballs; others termed me as ‘astutely uncanny’. I hated that. Maybe, there was an exhibitionist in me, as I was young and excited to do something different.”

Recently, Sharmila made an appearance on Kareena Kapoor Khan’s What Women Want and she was asked about the difference between a daughter and daughter-in-law, her reply won many hearts. Sharmila said, “Well, a daughter is someone you’ve grown up with, right? So you know her temperament, you know what makes her angry and how to deal with that person. You’re meeting your daughter-in-law when she is an adult already and you don’t quite know what her temperament is like, so it takes time to gel. The new girl, your daughter-in-law, is coming to your house so you need to welcome her and make her more comfortable.”

Meanwhile, Sharmila currently resides in Delhi.