At one point in the history of Hindi cinema they ruled over tinsel town with their acting prowess, popularity and/or good looks. Over the years they gradually retreated from the limelight into the shadows, but they always remained popular through their films. Now, with the passing of 2014, we bid adieu to these stars who the year has taken away from us.

The year 2014 began with the death of the beautiful diva Bengali-Hindi film actor Suchitra Sen. She wooed audiences with her classic Indian style features and dusky beauty in films like Devdas with Dilip Kumar, Adalat with Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra, Aandhi with Sanjeev Kumar and of course innumerable other Bengali films.

Hardly two months later another beautiful leading lady Nanda passed away in March. Her enacted song Allah tero naam Ishwar tero naam from the film Hum Dono with Dev Anand remains immortal to date.

She began her career as a child star and right till the end she was known as Baby Nanda. She acted in several films with Rajendra Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna and other leading men of the time.

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Images on Sunday says goodbye to some well-known Bollywood screen icons

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The middle of 2014 was time for effervescent Zohra Sehgal to leave us. Though she died at a very prime age of 102, she still hadn’t lost her sense of humour and zest for life.

Awarded with the second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan, she was more active in theatre (IPTA and Prithvi Theatre) and classical dance.

A few of her notable films are Dil Se, Saawariya, Hum Dil de Chuke Sanam, Cheeni Kum and more.

In November, Bollywood lost Sadashiv Amrapurkar at a very young age of 64. He came to prominence with the film Ardh Satya along with Om Puri. But he will be remembered for his venomous role of a eunuch in the film Sarak for which he won several awards.

Just a couple of days later, Ravi Chopra, who, along with his father the legendary B.R. Chopra, had directed the TV serial Mahabharat (1988), died of a heart failure. He had directed the Amitabh Bachchan-Saira Banu starrer Zameer and produced Bhootnath and Bhootnath Returns.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 28th, 2014