Sridevi Kapoor, Bollywood’s First Female Superstar, Dies at 54
Sridevi Kapoor, a Bollywood actress who starred in hundreds of films and was known as India’s first female superstar, died on Saturday in Dubai. She was 54.
The Dubai police said on Monday that she had drowned in a hotel bathtub after losing consciousness. Initial reports had said that the cause of death was cardiac arrest.
Sridevi, who went by a single name professionally, was one of the only Bollywood actresses to headline box-office hits without a man beside her in a leading role.
“Saddened by the untimely demise of noted actor Sridevi,” Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, wrote on Twitter. “She was a veteran of the film industry, whose long career included diverse roles and memorable performances.”
Sridevi was 4 when she appeared in her first film, the start of a career of that would span more than four decades. She worked on Tamil-, Telugu-, Malayalam- and Kannada-language films in South India before moving to the…