Shakeela

Shakeela was born in a Muslim family based in Kodambakkam, Madras, India. Her mother Chan Begum was from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh and father Chan Basha was from Madras.[4] She had six other siblings and did her school education from six different schools in Madras.[5][4] She could not complete her school leaving certificate examination, eventually making her foray into films.[4]

From the beginning of her career, she acted in many B grade movies and soft-porn movies.[6] One of her big hits was Kinnarathumbikal, which brought her into limelight and resulted in an unheard-of craze for her from youngsters to the old. She did a few controversial topless scenes in her initial movies until she got noticed.[2][3] Her B-Grade films were dubbed and released in almost all Indian languages. Her films were dubbed into foreign languages like Nepalese, Chinese, and Sinhala. After she acted in several movies, the soft-porn movies in India were colloquially called as "shakeela films".[7] Shakeela hired a body double Surayya Banu to do her topless scenes.[8][9]

Shakeela started appearing in family character roles in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada language movies since 2003. She wrote her autobiography in Malayalam,[10] which covered her family, her background, as well as her acquaintance with notable film personalities, politicians and childhood friends.[11][12]

In January 2018, she announced her 250th film as an actor, Sheelavathi, would begin production.[13][14]

In 2012, Shakeela announced that she will no longer act in B grade movies.[4] Shakeela released her autobiography "Shakeela: Aatmakatha" in 2013.[8][15] Shakeela has adopted a transgender daughter Mila.[16]

Shakeela joined the Indian National Congress on March 2021.[17][18]

Indrajit Lankesh directed her biopic Shakeela based on her life in which Richa Chadda portrays the title character.[20][21]

• Shakeela at IMDb
• Shakeela biopic official website