Actress Waheeda Rehman (May 14, 1936), turns a graceful 72 years old today. An actress par excellance and a graceful dancer, Waheeda's beauty and grace has endured through the years and made her an alltime favourite matinee idol of thousands, even today. Her exquisitely chiselled features and her sensitive performances can still match with the best that Bollywood has to offer today.

To Guru Dutt goes the credit if spotting her talent and beauty. He was instrumental in getting Waheeda to Bombay and casting her as the vamp in his film CID, directed by Raj Khosla. It was a crime thriller but Waheeda was instantly noticed and appreciated in the song 'Kahin Pe Nighaein, Kahin Pe Nishana,' from the same film. Guru Dutt persisted with his discovery and cast her in Pyaasa (1957), where she stunned one and all with her sensuous and yet sensitive performance as the prostitute. The inevitable happened, the director fell in love with his muse and their next film together, Guru Dutt's Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), almost eeriely, depicted their doomed love story. The film flopped miserably and a little later they are believed to have ended their relationship though she worked in two more films, produced by him, Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960) and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). Waheeda's career was blossoming and Guru Dutt was married to singer Geeta Dutt these factors must have played their part in the ultimate breakup between the two. Guru Dutt probably never got over her and the failure of his films and died in 1964 due to an overdose of sleeping pills.

Waheeda's career continued to flourish and she went on to work with most of the leading men of her times, beginning with Dilip Kumar (Dil Diye Dard Liye, Ram Aur Shyam), Raj Kapoor (Teesri Kasam), Dev Anand (Guide, Kala Baazar, Solva Saal), Sunil Dutt (Reshma Aur Shera, Mujhe Jeena Do), Biswajeet (Bees Saal Baad), Manoj Kumar (Pathar Ke Sanam). Some of the other films that she did which won her acclaim were Neel Kamal, Kohra and Khamoshi. In between, she even found time to work with the late Satyajit Ray in a film called Abhijaan. Her talent was recognised and she won many awards for her films, including the President's Award for Resham Aur Shera in 1971 and the Filmfare Awards for Best Actress in Guide (1965) and Neel Kamal (1968). Waheeda's contemporaries were actresses of the calibre of Nutan, Meena Kumari, Nanda , Nargis and Vyjayantimala, each a legend in their own way.

In the Seventies, Waheeda married an old co star of hers, Kamaljeet, (they were together in a film called Shagun in 1964) and settled down in Bangalore. She made the occasional foray into Bombay to work opposite Amitabh Bachchan in films like Kabhie Kabhie, where she played his wife, Trishul where she played his mother and Adalat. She made an appearance in Lamhe in 1991 as well opposite Sridevi and Anil Kapoor. But after her husband's death in 2001, the actress came back out of retirement and took to playing the loveable mother and grandmother in films like Om Jai Jagdish, Water and Rang De Basanti. She was awarded the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.

The numerous characters that she portrayed, like the prostitute of Pyaasa, the Nautankiwali of Teesri Kasam, the rebellious Rosie of Guide, or even that of Reshma, have by now become a part of filmi folklore. Like her, their magic too shall endure forever. Movietalkies.com would like to take this opportunity to wish Waheeda Rehman a very happy birthday today.