Who was Bela Bose, the Jai Santoshi Maa star and dancer who passed away at 79?

The veteran actress and classical dancer Bela Bose passed away on February 20. She acted in multiple films during the 1960s and gained nationwide fame with her sincere performance in the 1975 blockbuster film Jai Santoshi Maa.

Born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bela has born into an affluent family in Mumbai until a financial crisis wiped out their wealth and they had to relocate to Mumbai, then Bombay. After her father's death, she started her career as a group dancer in films to support her family and took up more roles in films after her schooling in the 1960s.

She played the role of a glamorous dancer, seen in the background of Helen and Aruna Irani among others, in multiple movies such as Bhagam Bhag and CID until her first big breakthrough came when she did a dance number with Raj Kapoor in the 1959 film Main Nashe Mein Hoon and started being recognised in the Hindi film industry. 

Three years later in 1962, Bela Bose bagged her first leading role in Sautela Bhai opposite Guru Dutt and then starred in multiple other hits such as Shammi Kapoor's Professor, Bimal Roy's Bandini, and Lekh Tandon's Amrapali. The late actress enjoyed her biggest success playing the villainous sister-in-law in the devotional film Jai Santoshi Maa in 1975, which turned out to be one of the most successful movies at the box office. She acted in around 150 films in her career.

Bela Bose became Bela Sengupta after her marriage to Ashish Kumar, her co-star from Jai Santoshi Maa. The actress was quite active on social media in her last few years sharing vintage photographs from her film sets on Facebook and Instagram.

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