This popular actress was born on January 7, 1957, as Saira Ali to small-time actors Sadiq Ali and Sharda Rai. She was the third daughter of her parents, who also had a son. Sadiq and Sharda soon divorced each other with the former disowning his wife and the four children. Sharda changed the names of all the children and Saira became Roopa Rai.
In her teens, Roopa started working in films to support her mother and her siblings. As she bagged her first film Zaroorat, the director BR Ishara gave her the screen name Reena Roy. The 1972 film, which also starred Vijay Arora, Danny Denzongpa, and Asit Sen, had Reena doing many semi-nude scenes, including one in which 40-year-old Asit attempts rape on her, when she was just 15 years old.
For the next couple of years, Reena was seen in such roles that centred on her sensual scenes until Zakhmee released in 1975. Once the film industry and the audiences took notice of her talent, Reena Roy gave impactful performances in many hit films such as Kalicharan, Nagin, Nasseb, Asha, Arpan, and Jaani Dushman. Her pairing with Jeetendra and Shatrughan Sinha became highly successful, and she was even allegedly involved in an extra-marital affair with Shatrughan. However, the Kaala Patthar star stuck to his wife Poonam Sinha and refused to leave her.
In 1983, the actress quit Bollywood to marry Pakistani cricketer Mohsin Khan and even shifted to Pakistan. However, the two of them got divorced in the early 1990s and she came back to India in 1992. Roy tried making her acting comeback and starred in ten films, but all of them flopped at the box office. Her last release was the 2000 romantic drama Refugee, which marked Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor's debut in the Hindi film industry.
READ | When Reena Roy broke her silence on her uncanny resemblance with rumoured ex Shatrughan Sinha's daughter Sonakshi Sinha
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