Nutan

Nutan Samarth-Bahl was born on 4 June 1936 in Bombay into a Marathi Hindu family as the eldest of four children to director-poet Kumarsen Samarth and his actress wife and filmmaker Shobhna. Kumarsen was one of the early developers of the Films Division of India. Her maternal grandmother Rattan Bai and her aunt Nalini Jaywant were also actors. She grew up with complexes as she was considered too skinny in her childhood. She had two sisters: actress Tanuja and Chatura and a brother Jaideep. Her parents separated before Jaideep's birth. Actresses Kajol and Tanishaa Mukerji are Nutan's nieces. Her niece Kajol later shared her record for most Filmfare Best Actress wins. As a child, Nutan went to Villa Theresa School and was later educated at the Baldwin Girls' High School in Bangalore. While she was attracted to the performing arts since childhood and liked singing and dancing, she liked arithmetic and geography at school. She took lessons in classical music for four years under Jagannath Prasad. In 1953, when her film career had already started, she headed to Switzerland for further studies at La Chatelaine, a finishing school. She was sent there at the behest of her mother following Nutan's intensive work in films and major weight loss. She described the one year spent there as the happiest in her life and returned home a year later having gained 22 pounds.