Kolkata: Whether refusing filmmaker Raj Kapoor's offer of a movie or her glamorous off-screen lifestyle - she once playfully tore off actor Soumitra Chatterjee's vest at a party - Bengali screen icon Suchitra Sen, who died Friday, made heads turn with her moves and stunned her contemporaries.
Filmmaker Aparna Sen recalled how, at a party, Sen had playfully mimicked a scene from "Saat Paakhe Bandha" - the film that fetched her the Silver Prize for best actress at the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival, the first international recognition for a Bengali actress.
"Asit Chowdhury had thrown a party after she won the award. Sharmila Tagore and me, we were very young then and we saw how she, very playfully, re-enacted the scene from the film where she tears (lead actor) Soumitra Chatterjee's vest...all in the middle of the starry gathering. We had never seen something like this."
Sen died Friday of cardiac arrest at a city nursing home here.
Her refusal to act in a film by Raj Kapoor under the R.K. banner made headlines.
It is said that Sen was put off as Kapoor knelt down on the floor with a bouquet in his hand and made her the offer.
"Why should a man bow down like this," she reportedly asked her close circle.
Moreover, films were made to cast her in a role that would do justice to her established talent.
