Sujata Kumar

Actress Sujata Kumar learned the hard way to never take anything for granted, and to always keep one eye open for opportunity. A devoted wife and mother, Kumar was in her forties when she realized her nearly two-decade long marriage was no longer working. So she did what she had to do; in the mid-2000s she filed for divorce, left behind her teenage daughter and started over as an actress. With help from industry friends and her much younger sister, well-known singer and actress Suchitra Krishnamoorthi, Kumar broke into commercial modeling. Her traditional Indian beauty and contemporary attitude helped her land over 60 advertisements before she broke into film with a debut role in the romantic drama "The Memsahib" (2006). Many of her roles feature her as motherly or authoritative characters. She portrayed a matchmaking matriarch in "Kya Love Story Hai" (2007) and an unhelpful manager in "The Cheetah Girls: One World" (2008), before receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis. After a short break for treatment, during which the hypnotherapy-practicing actress wrote an inspirational self-help book, a pair of movies - the end-of-life drama "Guzaarish" (2010) and the love story "Raanjhanaa" (2013) - reminded audiences of Kumar's talent and versatility.