Rekha, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan worked together in Yash Chopra’s ‘Silsila’.
Rekha claimed in an old interview that she saw the Bachchan family watching a trial screening of the movie ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’ through a projection room.
Recently, veteran actor Ranjeet revealed that late Parveen Babi was “heartbroken” after she was replaced by Jaya Bachchan in the 1981 film ‘Silsila’, co-starring Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha. Ranjeet claimed that filmmaker Yash Chopra decided to cast Jaya at the last minute due to “a gimmick controversy”.
Interestingly, ‘Silsila’ was the last film featuring Amitabh and Rekha, who became a popular onscreen couple with films like ‘Mr. Natwarlal’, ‘Do Anjaane’ and ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’. In a controversial interview with Stardust in 1978, Rekha had claimed that she saw Amitabh’s wife, actor Jaya Bachchan, break down while watching her “love scenes” with Amitabh in Prakash Mehra’s film ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’.
“Once, I was looking at the whole (Bachchan) family through the projection room when they came to see the trial show of Muqaddar Ka Sikandar. Jaya was sitting in the front row and he (Amitabh) and his parents were in the row behind her. They couldn’t see her as clearly as I could. And during our love scenes, I could see tears pouring down her face,” she had reportedly said.
Meanwhile, in an interview with ANI, Ranjeet had opened up about his equation with Parveen Babi and revealed that she was upset after she was removed from ‘Silsila’. Parveen Babi passed away in January 2005.
“She (Parveen Babi) was my dear friend… she was all alone. She was a beautiful lady. Always smiling and we used to call her ‘fawada‘ because of her teeth… Once she was very upset and she was crying. I asked her ‘Kya hua Parveen? (What happened Parveen?)’ We were in Kashmir. I don’t mind quoting because it’s a fact. A film was made, Silsila, and Parveen Babi was the original heroine but she was asked to leave. And because of a gimmick controversy, they cast Rekha and Jaya Bhaduri in the film otherwise it was Parveen and Rekha,” Ranjeet said.
