Sharmila Tagore began her career as a teenager in Satyajit Ray’s 1960 film Devi. In a recent interview, she mentioned that Ray paid her Rs 5,000 for her first movie, which she used to buy a lot of gold. Tagore also discussed her early investments and the challenges of managing her finances due to limited options available at the time.
On the YouTube show Paisa Vaisa with Anupam Gupta, the actress said, “I started working pretty early in life and I started earning pretty early in life. Although the fees was not as wonderful as they are right now but again, things didn’t cost so much.” She then opened up about her remuneration for her first film and said that her father was not interested in taking any money but Ray insisted. “Nevertheless, he gave me a saree, he gave me a watch and he gave me Rs 5,000. So instantly, being a Bengali family, we went to the gold shop. We bought bangles, we bought a necklace and we bought earrings for Rs 5,000. While the money was less, things were also not that expensive.”
In her earlier Bengali films, Sharmila Tagore earned about Rs 10,000-15,000. But for her first Hindi film, 1964’s Kashmir Ki Kali directed by Shakti Samanta, she received Rs 25,000. Tagore remembered that although she was supposed to get Rs 25,000 for both films, Samanta offered her a piece of land instead of cash for the second film. “He said, ‘Instead of giving you money, why don’t I give you land?’ In what is now Vile Parle. So I said, ‘Are you mad? Am I going to come and live in this swamp?’ That was back in 1963,” she said.
Sharmila Tagore is among the most popular veteran actresses in Bollywood. The actress was at the peak of her career in the 1960s and enjoyed a massive fan following among the audience.
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