Amrita Singh – Bollywood actress of Betaab fame

Amrita Singh is a well-known actress of Bollywood 1980s known for portraying many memorable lead roles during this era. She along with Sunny Deol had a magic debut onscreen through 1983 blockbuster, Betaab, and very soon she rose to fame through a few lead roles such as Chameli Ki Shaadi, Sunny, Mard, Saheb, Naam, Khudgarz etc. She was frequently paired with lead heroes of 1980s like Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor and Sunny Deol. After her marriage with Saif Ali Khan in 1991, she moved to character roles mostly portraying negative characters and antagonist roles in movies such as Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (1992) and Aaina (1993), before retiring from films. Post her separation with Saif Ali Khan, she returned to silver screen in 2002 playing mother roles and has been a seasonal actress since then.

Amrita Singh was born in 1958 in New Delhi. Her father Shivinder Singh Virk was an army officer while her mother Rukhsana Sultana was a socialite and political associate of Sanjay Gandhi during Emergency period in the mid-1970s. Her parents were legally separated. Initially she was a belly dancer. She made her Bollywood debut in 1983 with Betaab, and later went on to become a popular actress. After marriage she retired from films and brought up two kids. Her daughter Sara Ali Khan is a famous and successful Bollywood actress now.

Amrita Singh returned to silver screen through 23rd March 1931: Shaheed playing Bobby Deol’s mother, and was later seen in Shootout at Lokhandwala, Aurengazeb, 2 States, Kalyug etc, and most recently Badla, where she played the powerful and heart touching role of Rani Kaur, mother of a missing son. It’s her most powerful role in the past two decades. She has also done a negative role in 2005 TV show, Kavyanjali.

Amrita Singh – Some interesting facts

Amrita Singh from Sunny co-starring Sunny Deol

1. Amrita was formerly married to actor Saif Ali Khan, the son of Indian cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Bollywood glamorous queen Sharmila Tagore. Actress Soha Ali Khan (married to actor Kunal Khemu) was her sister-in-law. 

2. She married Saif Ali Khan 12 years junior to her surprising everyone in the industry and theirs was a love marriage. Saif Ali Khan married Amrita before his Bollywood screen debut and got separated from her soon after his first solo hit – Hum Tum in 2004. Saif later married top Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor.

3. Amrita’s father was a Sikh while her mother was a Muslim, and she followed Sikhism. However she embraced Islam to marry Saif Ali Khan, who was yet to find a way in Bollywood.

4. She met Saif for the first time in the film sets of Bekhudii directed by Rahul Rawli, and Kajol and Saif Ali Khan were planned to be launched to Bollywood. But Saif quit from the project in the initial phase. Saif was smitten by the charisma of Amrita though she was 12 years older and also a senior artist.

5. In the 1980s she was almost married to cricketer Ravi Shastri and the news became public when the duo graced the cover of an Indian magazine. Amrita was not willing to bring a break to her career, which resulted in their breakup. Ravi married in 1990 and Amrita, the following year and both are now divorcees.

6. Amrita is the great-granddaughter of Sobha Singh, contractor and builder of New Delhi in British India who identified and testified Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt for bombs at the Delhi assembly in 1929, which resulted in the prosecution of Bhagat Singh and his two associates.

7. Amrita is the great-grandniece of Ujjal Singh, a popular politician, parliamentarian, financial expert and administrator who served as the governor of Punjab and Tamil Nadu in the 1960s.

8. Great novelist and lawyer Khushwant Singh was her great-uncle (Sobha Singh’s son).

9. From mother’s side famous Bollywood actress of 1950s, Begum Para was her great-aunt, thus related to Begum’s husband Nasir Khan and brother-in-law Dilip Kumar (both are Bollywood actors).

10. Begum Para and Nasir Khan’s son Ayub Khan has appeared in a few Bollywood films and quite successful as a television actor. Though Ayub is Amrita’s uncle in relation, he is 7 years younger to her.

11. She received Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award for 1993 film Aaina, and has been nominated in the same category for Two States (2014).

12. Before she took sabbatical from silver screen she played a few memorable antagonist roles, and soon after her return to entertainment after a decade, she played noted negative roles in 2005 film, Kalyug and Kavyanjali the same year.