One of the most popular British actors in India, this BAFTA nominated artiste’s death cast a shadow that gradually dimmed her husband’s stardom

She then played a supporting role in Shyam Benegal’s period drama Junoon (1979), which also starred Shashi, Nafisa Ali, Shabana Azmi, and Naseeruddin Shah, among others. But her most prominent role came as Violet Stoneham, an Anglo-Indian school teacher in Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), which even earned her a nomination at the BAFTA Awards in the Best Actress in a Leading Role category.

Jennifer followed that up with appearances in Ivory’s Heat and Dust (1975), the 1984 film adaptation of MM Kaye’s epic novel The Far Pavilions, and Satyajit Ray’s 1984 Bengali romance Ghare Baire. She also turned costume designer for films like Junoon and Raj Tilak’s 1977 romantic drama Mukti, also headlined by Shashi.

More than her work, Jennifer Kendal was a part of pop culture because of her marriage with Shashi Kapoor. As per Felicity’s memoir White Cargo, they first met back in 1956 in Mumbai when she attended a play of the Prithvi Theatre company, owned by Shashi’s legendary father Prithviraj Kapoor, where he worked as a theatre assistant.

As per Felicity’s account, Shashi saw Jennifer from the curtains and instantly fell in love. They began dating the next day after a date at a Chinese restaurant. However, as per Geoffrey’s memoir The Shakespeare Wallah, Shashi and Jennifer met for the first time the same year in Kolkata, where she was playing Miranda in the play The Tempest organized by Shakespeareana.

However, soon after, since his theatre company was short on actors, Geoffrey borrowed Shashi from Prithviraj. Shashi obliged happily and worked hard under Jennifer, who was four years older to him, to work on his amateur English and become a Shakespeare actor within months. However, Geoffrey wasn’t in the favour of their relationship.

“When they were doing theatre, they were poor. They were under-slept and underfed, and my father would tell me how they would be tormented by hunger while strolling down the streets — both my parents trying to decide if they could get half a paratha. Then, they would walk past a restaurant and there would be my grandfather, Geoffrey Kendal, having a huge meal with a beer. My father couldn’t walk in. He was his employee and he was also stealing his daughter. So there was no way he could march into the storm,” recalled Shashi and Jennifer’s daughter Sanjana Kapoor in Aseem Chhabra’s 2016 biography Shashi Kapoor: The Household, The Star.

However, Jennifer Kendal and Shashi Kapoor’s relationship was supported by his elder brother and fellow actor Shammi Kapoor and his wife Geeta Bali, who had also eloped to marry a few years before that. Jennifer and Shashi left Shakespeareana in rebellion after they got job offers from a Singapore-based company. However, once that didn’t work out and both were stuck overseas, Shashi had no choice but to reach out to his eldest brother, actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor. He flew them down back to Mumbai and got them married in 1958.

Shashi and Jennifer soon became parents to two sons — Kunal Kapoor (father of Black Warrant actor Zahan Kapoor), Karan Kapoor, and Sanjana Kapoor. Over the next few years, Jennifer reconciled with her father as well, and spent a lot of summers in England with him. Shashi began doing four shifts a day in order to cover the expenses born by his new family who lived across Mumbai, Goa, and England. He came to be known as ‘Taxi,’ because he’d just shuttle from one set to another while working. Shashi and Jennifer also gave it back to theatre, building Prithvi Theatre in Juhu, Mumbai. Till date, the iconic spot serves as a training ground and launchpad for countless talented stage actors. It’s now operated by their kids Sanjana and Kunal.

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After getting diagnosed with colon cancer in 1982, Jennifer Kendal eventually succumbed to the illness two years later. Her death broke Shashi Kapoor irrevocably. Shashi took out his boat to the sea after Jennifer’s death. “When he got there, that was the first time he cried. Really, he wept,” recalled Kunal in Chhabra’s biography.

Shashi went on to star in several films, but couldn’t revive his career to the illustrious level it was before Jennifer’s passing. He even turned director with the 1991 action film Ajooba, starring Amitabh Bachchan, but that was also a commercial failure. He spent the last days of his career doing international films in memory of his late wife. Shashi’s health deteriorated in the 2000s and he died at the age of 79 in 2017.