Meet Bollywood star who worked with Saif Ali Khan, Govinda, and Chiranjeevi before vanishing after an unfortunate tryst with the underworld.
In the 90s, Bollywood was infamous for its dalliances with organised crime in Mumbai. The city’s dreaded underworld was reported to have links with financiers and producers and many dons were rumoured to have affairs with starlets. During this time, a promising young actress, who was a star down south, but a brush with underworld finished her rising career in Bollywood.
The actress was Sakshi Shivanand, who made her acting debut in Telugu cinema with the 1993 release Anna Vadina. Although Sakshi worked in Bollywood films like Janam Kundli and Papa Kehte Hain early on in her career, she found fame in Tamil and Telugu films through the 90s, working with top stars like Chiranjeevi, Mammootty, and Arvind Swamy. In the 2000s, Sakshi put her south career on a hold to come to Bollywood, working in films like Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai, which got her noticed. She even worked with Govinda in this period.
However, sadly for Sakshi, the attention came from unwanted quarters as well. She started getting calls from the underworld and realised that the producer of a film she was working on – Tum starring Saif Ali Khan – was allegedly linked to the underworld. In a 2013 interview to DNA, the actress had recalled, "I was terrified when the producer turned out to be from the underworld. I had everybody telling me that the underworld connection in Bollywood was very strong. I completely freaked out. I ran off to do Telugu and Kannada films.”
Sakshi changed her number and began ignorning all modes of communication from the team of Tum, which effectively ended her career in Bollywood. "If I hadn't freaked out after the brush with the underworld I'd have continued here. But I ran away from the Hindi industry. I was really shaken up. The Tum producer would call up, I had to change my number. No one knew where I was. That experience cost me my career in Hindi cinema. I had done Anubhav Sinha's Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha. Though it wasn't a hit, I was noticed,” the actress had said years later.
Sakshi Shivanand leads a low profile life and as per reports, is married as well. In 2019, the actress made news agan, courtesy her sister Shilpa Anand, who is also an actress. Shilpa, best known for the TV show Dill Mill Gayye, accused Sakshi’s mother-in-law of plotting to kill her and their mother.
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 "Sakshi Shivanand in the 90s")
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