Tabu Biography

Tall and elegant, Tabu is a Bollywood actress who is known for the strong and deglamourised roles she portrays in movies.Basics on TabuTabassum Hashmi was born under the Scorpion sunsign on 4th November 1970 in Hyderabad, India. Her parents are Jamal Hashmi and Rizwana who are divorced. Her mother was a school teacher while her grandparents were professors themselves who after retiring ran a school. Tabu’s older sister is an actress Farah Naaz and her aunt is actress and social activist Shabana Azmi.Tabu did her schooling in St Anne’s High School, Hyderabad. She also studied at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Tabu was known to be romantically involved with Sajid Nadiadwala, Sanjay Kapoor, Nagarjuna and Upen Patel. Her height is 5’8.5” making her one of the tallest actresses in Bollywood.Tabu’s Movies1985 to 1997 Tabu’s first movie was as a child actor in Hum Naujawan (1985) as Devanand’s daughter. In 1994, she had two releases Pehla Pehla Pyaar and Vijaypath. Her performance in Vijaypath won her the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award. In the Tamil movie Kadhal Desam (1996) she was seen with Abbas and Vineeth as a girl both of them love. She won the Filmfare Best Actress Award (Tamil) for her role as Divya. The same year her performance in the critically acclaimed Gulzar’s Maachis was considered brilliant. She played a Punjabi girl Veeru whose brother is tortured by the police and her fiancé gets caught up in terrorism. She won the National Film Award for Best Actress. She also made her mark in Telugu movies by winning the Filmfare Best Actress Award (Telugu) for Ninne Pelladatha.Tabu had another round of hits with Virasat and Border in 1997. In Priyadarshan’s Virasat, which was a remake of Thevar Magan, she played a village girl Gehna. It won her the Filmfare Critic’s Award for Best Performance. 1998 to 2003 She was seen in a comedy Chachi 420 (1998) with Kamal Hasan. She proved herself yet again with her act as Panna in Gulzar’s Hu Tu Tu (1999) which won her the Filmfare Critic’s Award for Best Performance. Her next role was lighter, as Lovely in the comedy Biwi No.1 (1999). She was seen in another comedy Hera Pheri (2000). She was seen as Soumiya in the Tamil movie Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000), which was based on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and had Aishwarya Rai playing her younger sister. In Mahesh Manjrekar’s Astitva (2000) she again delivered a powerful performance as Aditi, a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage that leads to an extra marital affair. She won the Filmfare Critic’s Award for Best Performance.Madhur Bhandarkar’s Chandni Bar (2001) saw her as Mumtaz, a bar girl, which won her another National Film Award for Best Actress. She was seen as Nimmi, Lady Macbeth’s counterpart in Bollywood, in Maqbool (2003). 2004 to 2009 Tabu became artist M.F.Hussain’s muse after Madhuri Dixit and appeared in Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities (2004). Mira Nair’s The Namesake (2007), an adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, received international acclaim. She was cast as the Bengali bride Ashima who moves to the U.S after getting married and the life she creates with her husband there and their son Gogol’s struggle with his identity. Cheeni Kum (2007) saw her hold her own opposite Amitabh Bachchan as his much younger lover and won her the Filmfare Critic’s Award for Best Performance. In 2009, Tabu has several Hindi and Tamil movies awaiting release like Anurag Singh’s Next, Season’s Greetings, Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai and Thalaivan Irukirran.