Noted for her versatility and acknowledged as one of the finest actresses in Hindi cinema, Birthday girl Rekha is a diva. Rekha started her career in 1966 as a child actress in the Telugu movie 'Rangula Ratnam'.

Despite the success of several of her early films, she was often panned for her looks and it was not until the mid-to-late 1970s that she got recognition as an actress. 

Since the late 1970s, after undertaking a physical transformation, she was featured as a sex symbol in the Indian media.

Rekha has acted in over 180 films in a career spanning 40 years. Throughout her career, she has often played strong female characters and apart from mainstream cinema, she appeared in arthouse films, known in India as parallel cinema. 

She has won three Filmfare Awards, two for Best Actress and one for Best Supporting Actress, for her roles in 'Khubsoorat' (1980), 'Khoon Bhari Maang' (1988) and 'Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi' (1996). 

Her portrayal of a classical courtesan in 'Umrao Jaan' (1981) won her the National Film Award for Best Actress. Though her career has gone through certain periods of decline, she has reinvented herself numerous times and has been credited for her ability to sustain her status.

Rekha was born in Chennai (then Madras) to Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan and Telugu actress Pushpavalli. Her father enjoyed considerable success as an actor and Rekha was to follow in his footsteps.

Her parents were not married, and her father did not acknowledge his paternity during her childhood.

It was in the early 1970s, when she was looking for a footing in Bollywood, that she revealed her origins. Later, at the peak of her career, Rekha told in a magazine interviewer that her father's neglect still bothered her and that she had ignored his efforts at reconciliation. 

Rekha quit school in order to start a career in acting. She did not have any personal aspirations in this direction, but the troubled financial state of her family compelled her to do so. 

Rekha was a child actress and was credited as Baby Bhanurekha. As she had no interest in acting and was basically forced to work in order to sustain her family financially, this was a difficult period in her life. 

Still a teenager, acclimatizing herself to her new surroundings was an uneasy process. Coming from the South, she did not speak Hindi and struggled to communicate with co-workers. Moreover, she was required to follow a strict diet.

Recalling this phase, Rekha was later quoted as saying, "I'm healed, I am not bitter anymore, I don't think I ever was."

"Bombay was like a jungle, and I had walked in unarmed. It was one of the most frightening phases of my life. I was totally ignorant of the ways of this new world. Guys did try and take advantage of my vulnerability. I did feel like,"What am I doing? I should be in school, having an ice-cream, fun with my friends, why am I even forced to work, deprived of normal things that a child should be doing at my age? Every single day I cried, because I had to eat what I didn't like, wear crazy cloths with sequins and stuff poking into my body. Costume, jewelery would give me terrible allergies. Hair spray wouldn't go off for days, despite all my washing. I was pushed, literally dragged from one studio to another. A terrible thing to do to a 13 year-old child," added the diva. 

Rekha recalls, the way she was perceived at that time motivated her to change her appearance and improve her choice of roles. She once said in an interview, "I was called the 'Ugly Duckling' of Hindi films because of my dark complexion and South Indian features. I used to feel deeply hurt when people compared me with leading actresses of the time and said that I was no match for them. I was determined to make it big on sheer merit."

This period marked the beginning of Rekha's physical transformation. She started paying attention to her make-up, dress sense and worked to improve her acting technique and perfect her Hindi-language skills. 

According to Author Khalid Mohamed, "The audience was floored when there was a swift change in her on-screen personality, as well as her style of acting." 

She began choosing her film roles with more care. Her first performance-oriented role came in 1976 when she played Amitabh Bachchan's ambitious and greedy wife in 'Do Anjaane'. An adaptation of Nihar Ranjan Gupta's Bengali novel 'Ratrir Yatri', the film was directed by Dulal Guha and became a reasonable success with audiences and critics.

Her most significant turning point, however, came in 1978, with her portrayal of a rape victim in the movie 'Ghar'. She played the role of Aarti, a newly married woman who gets gravely traumatised after being gang-raped. 

Critic Dinesh Raheja, in an article discussing her career, remarked, "Ghar heralded the arrival of a mature Rekha. Her archetypal jubilance was replaced by her very realistic portrayal..." 

Rekha attained fame with 'Muqaddar Ka Sikander', in which she co-starred once again with Amitabh Bachchan. The movie was the biggest hit of that year, as well as one of the biggest hits of the decade. Rekha was set as one of the most successful actresses of those times. The film opened to a positive critical reception, and Rekha's performance as a courtesan named Zohra, noted for a "smouldering intensity", earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Filmfare.

Rekha went on to star opposite Bachchan in a number of films, most of which were hits. Yash Chopra's drama 'Silsila' was the most scandalous of their films together - Rekha played Bachchan's love interest, while Bachchan's real-life wife, Jaya Bhaduri (now Bachchan), played his wife. This was their last film together.

Shyam Benegal's award-winning drama, 'Kalyug' (1981), Govind Nihalani's 'Vijeta' (1982), Girish Karnad's 'Utsav' (1984) and Gulzar's 'Ijaazat' (1987), among others were Rekha's greatest hits. 

Apart from parallel cinema, Rekha took on other increasingly serious, even adventurous roles. M.L. Dhawan, while documenting the famous Hindi films of 1988, remarked that 'Khoon Bhari Maang' was "a crowning glory for Rekha, who rose like a phoenix ... and bedazzled the audience with her daredevilry."

Encyclopedia Britannica's section on Hindi Cinema listed her role in the film as one of Hindi cinema's memorable female characters, noting it for changing "The perception of the ever-forgiving wife, turning her into an avenging angel." In a similar list by a National magazine, the role was included as one of "Ten memorable roles that made the Hindi film heroine proud."

In later interviews, Rekha often described the moment she received the Filmfare Award for this role as a turning point, explaining that only then did she start genuinely enjoying her work and seeing it as more than "just a job". She said, "When I went up on the stage, and received my award for 'Khoon Bhari Maang'... Boom, it hit me! That's the first time I realised the value of being an actor and how much this profession meant to me".

'Kama Sutra', a foreign production directed by Mira Nair, was an erotic drama and many felt it would damage Rekha's career, as Rekha played a Kama Sutra teacher in the film. Another controversial film at that time was 'Aastha: In the Prison of Spring' (1997), where Basu Bhattacharya, making the last film of his career, cast her as a housewife who moonlights as a prostitute. 

In the 2000s, Rekha appeared in relatively few movies, usually in supporting mother roles. She started the decade with 'Bulandi', directed by Rama Rao Tatineni.

In 2001, Rekha appeared in Rajkumar Santoshi's feminist drama 'Lajja'. Taran Adarsh wrote that "It is Rekha who walks away with the glory, delivering one of the finest performances the Indian screen has seen in the recent times".

In 2010, Rekha was awarded the Padma Shri, The 4th Highest Civilian Award given by the Government of India.

Rekha has definitely come a long way. The term diva in India was coined for Rekha. Mira Nair likens her to a "Jamini Roy painting" and says, "Like Marilyn Monroe is shorthand for sex, Rekha is shorthand for charisma". Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali labels her the "last of the great stars".

She was referred to as the reigning 'Queen of Indian Cinema' at the 2012 IIFA Awards held in Singapore, where she was given the "Outstanding Contribution to Indian Cinema (Female)" Award, also referred to as the Lifetime Achievement Award.