Sharmila Tagore reveals her first salary was Rs 5,000, bought gold bangles, necklace with it: ‘Can you get even a little bit of gold with that today?’

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Sharmila Tagore said that during her earlier Bengali films, she was getting paid around Rs 10,000-15,000 but for her first Hindi film, she was paid Rs 25,000. Her first Hindi film was 1964’s Kashmir Ki Kali, directed by Shakti Samanta. Tagore recalled that she was supposed to get Rs 25,000 each for both the films but Samanta offered her to buy a piece of land instead of her remuneration for the second film. “He said, ‘Instead of giving you money, why don’t I give you land?’ In what is now Vile Parle. So I said, ‘Are you mad? Am I going to come and live in this swamp?’ That was back in 1963,” she said.

The actor said that back in those days, she did not even live in an apartment in Mumbai and continued to live in Taj Mahal Hotel for a couple of years because “I couldn’t be bothered about housekeeping”. Tagore said that after a few years, she bought her first apartment for Rs 3 lakh and recalled it being a “struggle”. “I bought my apartment for Rs 3 lakh and it was such a struggle to arrange for that Rs 3 lakh because at that time, we were paying enormous tax. So there was no scope for capital building,” she said.

Sharmila Tagore was last seen in the film Gulmohar.