Rehana Sultan (born 19 November 1950[1]) is an Indian actress best known for her debut role in the acclaimed 1970 film Dastak which won her the National Film Award for Best Actress. A graduate of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, she is also known for another bold role in the film Chetna (1970), which got her typecast thus ending her film career, despite its promising start.[1][2][3] She said "The sex in my films was not forced, but part of the narrative. Today, I feel these scenes are used for commercial reasons. All I can say is Babuda was ahead of his times."[4]
Biography
Rehana Sultan was born and raised in Allahabad in a Baháʼí family, she graduated from high school in 1967, and was selected in the same year to study acting at FTII.[5] After she graduated with a sexy role in Vishwanath Ayengar's diploma film Shadi Ki Pehli Salgirah (1967),[6] she got her break in a feature film in Rajinder Singh Bedi's Dastak (1970), making her the first actress from the Institute to land a lead role in the film industry.[7][8] She won the National Film Award for her role in that film. In the same year she also played the lead role in the film Chetna which was shot in 28 days along with the shooting of Dastak. That film was about the rehabilitation of prostitutes, and her role changed the portrayal of sex workers in Hindi cinema.[9]
Her avant-garde roles brought her success but limited her choices in future films. Some of her well known films include Haar Jeet (1972), Prem Parbat (1973) and the political satire Kissa Kursi Ka (1977). Vijay Anand's Hum Rahen Na Rahen (1984) in shich she costarred with Shabana Azmi was her last Hindi film in a lead role. She married writer-director B. R. Ishara, who had directed Chetna. She has also appeared in a Punjabi movie Putt Jattan De (1981) with Shatrughan Sinha.
