Happy Birthday Katrina!
Very few Bollywood actresses look as radiant as her without
donning a single speck of makeup. Meet the ‘firangee’ girl of Bollywood who
would be celebrating her 28th birthday on the 16th of
this month. Here’s a feature dedicated to this beautiful and intelligent
actress.
Early
Life
She was born in Hong Kong to British mother Susanna
Turquotte. Since her parents got divorced when she was very young; Katrina
lived with her mother and assumed her surname. Her father, as she says, played
no role in bringing up Katrina and her siblings. She travelled the whole of
Europe almost before settling down in England for three years. But all this was
before she decided to come to India changing her surname from Turquotte to
Kaif. Since then she has been living in Mumbai at the Guldev Sagar Society in Bandra.
Career
Span
She came to India under an employment visa to star in Kaizad
Gustad’s Boom which failed to impress the audience but paved Katrina’s path
further into Bollywood. In spite of her inability to speak Hindi, Katrina
bravely took up projects like Sarkar and Maine Pyar Kyu Kiya. The Indian
audience adored this innocent and beautiful half British girl and accepted her
as a mainstream Bollywood actress.
Namastey London had her playing herself and this time she did not require a dubbing artist although she had to work on her Hindi to convincingly appear as an Indian girl brought up abroad.
She has some comedy films under her credit too like Welcome and Partner where in the latter she was paired opposite Govinda. The pair sounds pretty odd but she looked gorgeous anyway.
Race had her playing a negative role as a plotting secretary to Saif Ali Khan. She pretended to love him while planning to kill him and usurp his property.
Kabir Khan’s New York saw her playing a confident woman and a true lover to terrorist hubby John Abraham. She got nominated for the Filmfare Best Actress for this movie which is based upon the treatment of Muslims in New York after the 9/11 attacks.
Milestones
in her Career
The fact that she is a British Citizen remains unbelievable;
looking at the way she gyrates to peppy Bollywood songs aka item numbers. She
has 3 super hit and super sexy item songs in her kitty apart from some really
amazing films. The first time people saw her raunchy side was in Race where she
danced to the tunes of ‘Zara Zara Touch Me’ to seduce her boss Saif Ali Khan. Then
the sexy ‘Sheila Ki Jawani ‘in Farah Khan’s Tees Mar Khan which can be still heard
in discos, pubs and wedding ‘sangeets’. Although a total nonsense movie; it had
one sole attraction to pull the audience to the theatres.
The erstwhile serious movie Agneepath had Katrina Kaif as Chikni Chameli to give the movie a refreshing feel. Katrina tried the Laavni dance style for the first time in her life and did it to perfection. Even some mainstream Bollywood actresses would not dare to take up such a song but Katrina did and proved her versatility.
Rajneeti was yet another big event in her career. She played a bubbly girl brought up abroad but belonging to a political family. The film depicts how she is drawn into the murky world of politics following the death of her husband.
In her recent movie ‘Ek Tha Tiger’ she shows off some cool belly dance moves and looks as sensuous as ever. She plays Salman’s love interest in the movie.
Here’s hoping that the song turns out to be a huge success
and she has even more reasons to celebrate. Happy Birthday Katrina!