Shakeela

Shakeela was born in a Muslim family in Kodambakkam, Madras, India.[4] She could not complete her school leaving certificate examination, eventually making her foray into films.[4]

From the beginning of her career, she acted in B movies and softcore pornography.[5] One of her big hits was Kinnarathumbikal, 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 until she got noticed.[2][3] Her B movieswere dubbed and released in almost all Indian languages. Her films were dubbed into foreign languages like Nepalese, Chinese, and Sinhala. After she acted in several movies, the soft-porn movies in India were colloquially called as "shakeela films".[6] Shakeela hired a body double Surayya Banu to do her topless scenes.[7][8]

Shakeela started appearing in family character roles in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada language movies since 2003. She wrote her autobiography in Malayalam,[9] which covered her family, her background, as well as her acquaintance with notable film personalities, politicians and childhood friends.[10][11]

In January 2018, she announced her 250th film as an actor, Sheelavathi, would begin production.[12][13]

In 2012, Shakeela announced that she will no longer act in B grade movies.[4] Shakeela released her autobiography Shakeela: Aatmakatha in 2013.[7][14] She also adopted a daughter named Mila.[15]

Shakeela joined the Indian National Congress in March 2021.[16][17]

Indrajit Lankesh directed her biopic Shakeela based on her life in which Richa Chadda portrays the title character.[19][20]

• Shakeela at IMDb
• Shakeela biopic official website