Shilpa Shirodkar, who claims to be a full-time mother now, made a successful start to her acting career with Ramesh Sippy's film Bhrashtachar in 1989. Soon after, she featured in superhits like Trinetra, Hum, Khuda Gawah, Gopi Kishan and Mrityudand among several others before taking a long break. While Shilpa left behind a mark in the industry with her films, her journey wasn't a cakewalk. Talking to a leading daily, Shilpa recalled the time when she signed a film in 1987 but it didn't take off. Unaffected by it, she went back to her studies.

"I still remember on August 9, 1987, at Filmistan studio. I was supposed to be shooting with the biggest actors of the industry. I saw so many people waiting to see Rajesh Khanna, Tina Munim, Jaya Prada, Sumeet Saigal and Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde. It seemed like the whole industry was in a frenzy that a new girl was to be launched, the hype was too much. It was absolutely like a dream come true, but as we all know, everything doesn't always turn out the way we want to. The film didn't take off. Nevertheless, at that time it didn't matter much to me honestly and I continued studying. I am blessed that I had a very strong family. But a year later, journalists started calling my mother asking her about me and my career. They also suggested that we should not waste our time and that the film would never be made," Shilpa told.

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She revealed that there was a time when she was given the term jinxed because her initial two films failed to see the daylight. "Post that I met the miracle man of my life, Gautam Rajadhyaksh, I did a photoshoot with him. He organised everything that was required for the shoot. Right from the make-up artist to hairdresser everyone without any cost and the photo shoot was amazing. And as god may have had it, one of the stylists from the photoshoot met Rikkuji (Rikku Rakesh Nath, the top-most manager then who handled actors like Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit) at Juhu beach for their casual morning walk and told them that they should consider me for films. Rikkuji at that time was working with Anil Kapoor, Boney Kapoor and was planning to launch Sanjay Kapoor and they were in search of a new girl. One day, Rikkuji came home and we went to meet Boneyji and the meeting went well. As Mr. India was a huge hit, Shekar Kapoor was going to direct Sanjay for his debut film. They were planning a film titled, 'Jungle' with Sanjay and I was a huge candidate for it. But again that didn't work out and Kapoor made his Bollywood debut with 'Prem' along with Tabu. By this time everyone in the industry had named me 'Jinxed," she added.

She credited Rikku Rakesh Nath and Mithun Chakraborty for helping the jinxed tag to be erased. "Rikkuji didn't give up on me. He started showing my pictures to everyone in the industry and I bagged 'Brashtachar' and my journey in Bollywood began. Mithun Da helped me a lot, he was instrumental in my Jinxed tag to be wiped out. So yes, I didn't come with all the frills and fancies but I made it," she said. 

Shilpa, after a long break, made her television debut with Ek Mutthi Aasmaan and was last seen in Savitri Devi College & Hospital.

(Source: Times Of India)