The 90s was a time of proliferation for the Hindi film industry. The earnings of big Bollywood films was now crossing Rs 40-50 crore routinely. As a result, the stars were now being paid in crores instead of just lakhs as well. Soon after Chiranjeevi, the Telugu megastar, broke the crore-barrier down south, Bollywood stars followed suit. But they were all beaten by a woman, a pan India star who earned more than even the Khans at their peak.
The Bollywood star who out-earned the three Khans
In the mid-90s, the three Khans were the hottest new stars on the block. Along with Amitabh Bachchan, who was on a sabbatical at this time, they were the only Hindi film heroes to charge Rs 1 crore per film. But at the same time, Sridevi, the reigning box office queen, was charging up to Rs 1.25 crore per film, higher than the Khans and even as much as south superstars like Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, and Chiranjeevi. Due to her star power, Sridevi was dubbed Lady Bachchan by the press and the south media even called her ‘bigger than Big B’, a tag that had been used for Chiranjeevi earlier.
When Sridevi quit films at her peak
In 1996, when Sridevi was at the peak of her stardom, she married producer Boney Kapoor. The marriage was quite controversial as Boney was already married and had two children. Sridevi soon became pregnant with daughter Janhvi and decided to take a break from acting to focus on motherhood. The 1997 release Judaai was her last for almost a decade. At 34, the superstar quit films.
Sridevi’s comeback and later years
After a six-year break, Sridevi returned to acting but on TV as she starred in the show Malini Iyer. But this remained her only acting role for almost a decade. In 2012, the actress finally returned to the big screen after a 15-year gap with English Vinglish. She then appeared in her first Tamil film in over two decades – Puli. Her last film in the lead role was the 2017 release Mom, which won her a National Award posthumously. Sridevi died in 2017 after a case of accidental drowning. Her last on screen appearance was in a cameo in Shah Rukh Khan’s Zero, which released in 2018.
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