Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha were often in the news because of rumours about their relationship. While they never confirmed anything, many people from the film industry talked about them, and several incidents were mentioned in Rekha’s biography Rekha: The Untold Story by Yasser Usman.
One such incident happened during the shooting of the film Laawaris. According to the book, director Prakash Mehra shared that he saw Rekha and Amitabh having a serious argument on the sets at Natraj Studio. Rekha got emotional and cried. The reason for the fight was reportedly Amitabh’s closeness with an Iranian actress named Nellie. Prakash Mehra said, “All this drama was over Nellie.”
The situation became so intense that a gossip magazine called Stardust even reported that there might have been some physical fight involved. However, it’s not confirmed whether this actually happened.
After this fight, Rekha was very upset and decided to quit the film Silsila. She returned the signing amount she had received from director Yash Chopra.
To keep the film going, Chopra started looking for other actresses. While Amitabh stayed in the film, Padmini Kolhapure was approached for the role of the other woman, and Poonam Dhillon was considered for the role of Amitabh’s wife, which was originally meant for Jaya Bachchan. But none of these casting changes seemed to work out emotionally or creatively.
Later, Yash Chopra tried another version with Parveen Babi as Rekha’s replacement and Smita Patil as the wife. They even started shooting in Kashmir. But Chopra still wasn’t happy. He felt something was missing.
Eventually, after many efforts, Chopra convinced Rekha to come back to the film. In an old interview, actor Ranjeet said that Parveen Babi was heartbroken and cried a lot when she was replaced by Rekha.
Also See: Debt, Betrayal, and a Promise: The Untold Story of Amitabh Bachchan’s Fall and Rise…
