Today Simi Garewal is known as 'The Woman In White' and
the host of the wildly popular television interview show,
"Rendezvous
with Simi Garewal" where she plays the chic interview
host inviting filmi stars and the super rich for a bit of
tea and gossip.
For Bollywood in the 1960s and 70s Simi Garewal was the
epitome of Indian genteel sophistication and restraint. Her
image as the cool and controlled beauty of Hindi Popular Cinema
never won her the kudos of the front benchers and she was
not a song and dance girl, but Simi worked with all the heavy
weight actors and India's best directors during her career.
Her signature role was as the school teacher that the young
Rishi Kapoor has a crush on in Raj Kapoor's "Mera Naam
Joker" (1970).
Simi Garewal was an anomaly of sorts, not the usual Bollywood
story. She was born in India but raised in England, the daughter
of a military brigadier. As a child living as a NRI she was
obsessed with becoming a Bollywood star. As a teen, barely
knowing Hindi, she came back to India with her Mother to fulfill
her dream of stardom. In a chance meeting with Mehboob Khan
(director of Mother India) she convinced the director to put
her in his next film and Simi's film career was born.
