LEELA

Leela Naidu was listed as one of the five most beautiful women in the world by Vogue magazine. But she was much more than that. She was the fine-boned; haunting face in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anuradha; in Merchant-Ivory's The Householder and in Shyam Benegal's Trikaal. She was the woman who refused to sign Raj Kapoor's films four times; and the actor who asked for a script long before the phrase 'bound script' became Bollywood cliché. Jean Renoir taught her acting and Salvador Dali used her as a model for a Madonna. Leela was married; the mother of twins and divorced before she was twenty. Later; she was Dom Moraes's muse; his unpaid secretary; his best friend and; when he was interviewing Indira Gandhi; his translator (interpreting 'his mumbling questions'). Through this time she also edited magazines and dubbed Hong Kong action movies; was Kumar Shahani's first producer; and when JRD Tata wanted a film on how to use the washroom on a plane; she made it for him. A Patchwork...