Attractive, talented, young Mandakini won the hearts of millions of Indians worldwide in her performance in “Ram Teri Ganga Maili”.
Mandakini born was on 7th January 1969 in an Anglo Indian family in Meerut. Her mother is a British and her father is Kashmiri Muslim.
Her birth name is Yasmin Jozeph. She is 5 feet 2½ inch (1.59 m) height.
At the age of 16, in 1985 she was cast in the lead role in Raj Kapoor’s movie, “Ram Teri Ganga Maili” opposite his youngest son, Rajiv Kapoor. The movie was a hit, and it earned Mandakini a Filmfare nomination as Best Actress.
Thereafter her name was a household name. She starred with Mithun Chakraborty in another hit movie “Dance Dance” which won many accolades for her.
She acted in Telugu films “Bhagava Ramudu” opposite Bala Krishna, “Simhasanam” along with Krishna and “Brahma Rudrulu” opposite Venkatesh.
Mandakini acted in a few more successful films, such as Pyaar Karke Dekho with Govinda, but never managed to recreate the success of her first movie. All her films flopped badly after that.
Mandakini went on to appear in almost forty films before she retired from acting.
Since her other passion was singing, she released two albums named: “No Vacancy”, and “Shambala” – neither of which was a success.
In 1990, Mandakini got married to a Buddhist, Dr. Kagyur T. Rinpoche Thakur. In 1996 she gave birth to one child.
In 1994, photographs began circulating of Mandakini in the presence of dreaded gangster Dawood Ibrahim. Rumours had already been doing the rounds that the two were an item, and these only served to fuel them. One of the theories put forward was that Ibrahim, who was known to have a keen interest in Bollywood and had even financed movies starring her. There were also reports that she and Dawood had a child and that she’d spent some time with him in Dubai.
The actress flatly denied all such claims, and never admitted to having an affair with mafia don Dawood Ibrahim, although the two were spotted together in many instances spending time with each other. Photos portraying the two together were published in the same year, and this served as a serious setback to her professional career.
She quit movies after Zordaar in 1996, and has lived in Mumbai with her husband and children. Since then, her fans have not seen any new releases, and many hope that she returns to the silver screen again.
