Jai Santoshi Maa actress Bela Bose passes away at 81

NEW DELHI: Actor Bela Bose, whose flowing dance moves left a fond and indelible impression among Hindi movie buffs in the 1960s and 1970s, passed away in Mumbai on Monday. She was 81, reports Avijit Ghosh.
Devar, Cha Cha Cha, CID 909, Shikar and Jai Santoshi Maa are among her well-known films. At a time when a song lensed in a night club was almost mandatory for any city-based Hindi film, Bose belonged to a select group of dancers, headed by Helen, who brought glamour and sizzle on celluloid.
One of her finest performances came in tandem with Madhumati, another first-rate dancer, in the brilliantly choreographed, Hai nazar ka ishara, in Raj Khosla's suspense thriller, Anita (1967). The two matched each other step for step. "You must have a quick 'pick-up sense,"' the ability to grasp any move as per the choreographer's instruction, she once told compere Tabassum in a television interview.
When only 12, Calcutta-born Bose lost her father, a clothes businessman, in a car accident. The family had just shifted to Bombay a few years ago. Her mother worked as a nurse and Bose joined the film industry as a group dancer.
"I was spotted by director Naresh Saigal and given my first solo dance in Main Nashe Mein Hoon (1959)," she told Tabassum. The film starring Raj Kapoor and Mala Sinha was a major hit and spurred a fruitful career that spanned over two decades. Bose had married prominent hero of devotionals, Ashish Kumar (of Jai Santoshi Maa fame) and had become Bela Sengupta. She had also played a negative character in the 1975 blockbuster which had turned theatres into temporary temples.