Laxmi Chhaya was an Indian actress and dancer who appeared in upwards of 55 Bollywood

Bollywood

Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 films in the 1960s and 1970s, including Mera Gaon Mera Desh

Mera Gaon Mera Desh

Mera Gaon Mera Desh is a 1971 Indian film made by Raj Khosla, starring Dharmendra in the lead role and also Vinod Khanna as the villain.-Performances:...

, Teesri Manzil

Teesri Manzil

Teesri Manzil is a Bollywood thriller directed by Vijay Anand and produced by Nasir Hussain. It starred his regular actors Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh. Nazima, Premnath, Prem Chopra, Iftekhar, Helen, K. N. Singh and Salim Khan were part of the supporting cast...

 and Duniya

Duniya (1968 film)

Duniya is a 1968 Hindi romantic thriller film written by K. A. Narayan and directed by T. Prakash Rao. The film starred Dev Anand, Vyjayanthimala in the lead with Balraj Sahni, Johnny Walker, Lalita Pawar, Prem Chopra, Sulochana Latkar, Madan Puri, Nana Palsikar, Achala Sachdev, Laxmi Chhaya,...

. She may be best known in the United States as the masked dancer in the dance segment Jaan Pehechan Ho

Jaan Pehechan Ho

Jaan Pehechan Ho is a popular song, composed by Shankar Jaikishan, lyrics by Anand Bakshi, sung by Mohammed Rafi, from the 1965 movie Gumnaam, directed by Raja Nawathe, produced by N N Sippy and starring Manoj Kumar & Nanda .-The Video:...

 from the 1965 movie Gumnaam

Gumnaam

Gumnaam is a 1965 Indian horror thriller film directed by Raja Nawathe, starring Manoj Kumar, Nanda, Pran, Helen and Mehmood. The film became a box office hit...

, portions of which were included in the opening credits of the 2001 U.S. film Ghostworld.

Chhaya’s film career extended from about 1962 through at least 1982. After retiring from the cinema, Chhaya taught dancing to indigent children. She died from cancer in Mumbai in 2004 at the age of 57.