Kajol Biography

Born on 5th August 1974, Kajol Devgan is from a film oriented family of Bengali-Marathi descent. Her mother Tanuja is an actress and her father Shomu Mukherjee was a film director and producer. Her younger sister Tanisha Mukherjee is also an actress. Mischievous and obstinate from an early age, this star was not affected by her parents’ split.

She studied at the St Joseph Convent boarding school in Panchgani which offered her ample extracurricular activities. Her passion for reading fiction helped her through the bad moments of her life. She began working for Rahul Rawail’s film ‘Bekhudi’ at the age of sixteen and dropped out of school to pursue acting as a career.

Her performance in her film which was a commercial failure gave her ‘Baazigar’ (1993) which was declared a success. She won her first Filmfare Best Actress nomination for the movie ‘Yeh Dillagi’.

Her pairing with Shahrukh Khan was full of luck because their next two movies together ‘Karan Arjun’ and ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ were commercial hits. Her ‘DDLJ’ is still counted in the best Hindi movies of all time and earned her a Filmfare award for Best Actress.

In 1995, she acted opposite Ajay Devgan in two unsuccessful films ‘Hulchul’ and ‘Gundaraj’. Playing a mean and negative role in her 1997 hit ‘Gupt: The Hidden Truth’ was difficult was her but was a turning point in her career. She won the Filmfare award for Best Negative role.

Her romantic comedy ‘Ishq’ was again a commercial success. In 1998 she appeared in her first hit of the year ‘Pyaar Kiya to Darna Kya’ and then in ‘Dushman’ which received critical appreciations and her first Screen Award for Best Actress.

Her biggest success that year was Karan Johar’s ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ with Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee which was a blockbuster in India and overseas and fetched her Filmfare Best Actress Award. In 1999 her ‘Dil Kya kare’ was a failure but her next ‘Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain’ was one of the few women centered films which were a success.

In 2000 after the failure of ‘Raju Chacha’ and ‘Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi’, she appeared in ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham’ which was a blockbuster in India. After this she became more selective about her movies to concentrate on her married life with Ajay Devgan whom she married in 1999 after much criticism about their pair.

She appeared in ‘Fanaa’ in 2006 which was again a super hit and won her a fourth Filmfare Best Actress award. In 2008 she was honored with the ‘Karamveer Puraskar’ for her social services. Her next was Devgan’s directorial debut ‘U Me aur Hum’ which did moderately at the box office but won Kajol critical praises for her role as an Alzheimer diseased woman.

Concerned about the literacy rate, she launched ‘Shiksha’ to support children’s education. In 2010, she did ‘My Name is Khan’ with Shahrukh khan’ which was an international success. She next did ‘We Are Family’ which did moderately. Her last venture of the year was ‘Toonpur Ka Superhero’ which was a critical and commercial failure. In 2003, she gave birth to a daughter Nysa and in 2010 to a son, Yug. She was appointed the brand ambassador of Pratham, a charity organization in 2012.