In her time during the 1970s, Leena Chandavarkar vied for the number
one spot as a heroine in Bollywood and appeared in a whole string of
fluff entertainers with all the top romantic actors of her day. Today,
as an actress she is nearly forgotten. Of her 40 or so films none could
be considered 'classic' yet they typified the light entertainment and
romantic melodrama that fuels the bread and butter of Hindi Popular
Cinema.
Leena Chandavakar possessed that modern freshness and vivacious
youthful energy that was the hallmark of the 'new' Bollywood heroine
that appeared in the late 60s and early 70s. She was modern, yet valued
tradition, sexy, but also a virginal innocent, and as Dinesh Raheja
termed her in his rediff.com profile, "positively perky" and
a "spitfire". She possessed that complete package of the quintessential
Bollywood heroine and captured the imagination of the Hindi movie going
public.
