Parveen Babi’s body was discovered by Mumbai Police after they broke into her apartment, where she lived alone. She appeared to have died of natural causes. Police took the action  Saturday after her neighbors claimed that her apartment door had not been opened for two days. Parveen Babi  was about 50 years old.

She was cast in her first Hindi film, Charitra in 1973, while still a student at the Ahmedabad University, and was best known for her roles alongside Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

Babi starred in more than 50 Hindi films including Deewaar, Majboor and Amar Akbar Anthony. She and her counter part Zeenat Aman represented the modern face of Indian women and helped push aside, albeit for a short while, the image of the long-suffering Sati Savithri type of Bollywood heroine.

In 1977 she was featured on the cover of US magazine 'Time' as the face of the modern Indian woman, and her popularity rose.

Parveen Babi’s name was linked with the actor Danny Denzogpa, Kabir Bedi and later with director Mahesh Bhatt. Her tumultuous, widely publicized affair with Mahesh Bhatt prompted the latter to make "Arth", supposedly based on his affair with Parveen. Smita Patil played Parveen in the film and the film is supposed to have disturbed Parveen deeply. She fled abroad and turned to a spiritual guru for sustenance.

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