Priya Tendulkar was an actress, social activist and a writer of Marathi origin, who is most known for her eponymous role in the television series Rajani.

Life

Priya displayed an inclination towards art and culture from her childhood as her father was the eminent popular writer Vijay Tendulkar

Vijay Tendulkar

Vijay Tendulkar was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi...

. Her first appearance was as a doll in a stage play called Haya Vadan (1969) along with Kalpana Lajmi. Later she shuffled between different jobs as a hotel service receptionist in a 5 star hotel, an air hostess, and a part time model.

Her debut film appearance was in Shyam Benegal

Shyam Benegal

Shyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...

's Ankur

Ankur (film)

Ankur is an Indian colour film of 1974. It was the first feature film directed by Shyam Benegal and the debut of Indian actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag...

 (1974)where she played Anant Nag's submissive wife. Thereafter she switched her interest towards Marathi films and played stellar roles in nearly a dozen Marathi family socials, opposite actors like Ashok Saraf

Ashok Saraf

Ashok Saraf is an Indian actor and comedian. He has appeared in many Hindi and Marathi movies for since the late 1960s.Ashok Saraf is known mainly for comedy movies, many of which he appeared in with Laxmikant Berde...

, Ravindra Mahajani and Mahesh Kothare

Mahesh Kothare

Mahesh Kothare is an actor, director and producer of Marathi and Hindi films. He has been working with Indian cinema since when he was small child. He acted as a child artist in well known movie Raja Aur Rank, Chhota Bhai, Mere Laal, Ghar Ghar ki Kahani...

. She also appears opposite to Anant Nag

Anant Nag

Anant Nagarkatte popularly known as Anant Nag is an actor and politician from Karnataka, India. He is considered to be one of the all time greatest actors in the Kannada film industry with a vast number of commercially successful movies. As a result, he is popularly known as an actor with...

 in kannada movie Minchina Ota

Minchina Ota

Minchina Ota is a 2008 Kannada film directed by M. R. Ramesh and produced by S. R. Govind. It stars Lakshmi Rai, Vijaya Raghavendra and Sri Murali in the lead roles. Music was composed by V. Manohar. The film released statewide on 10 July 2008. The movie is inspired by the 1971 Hollywood film Duel....

, in a important role.

She rose to national fame with her TV series Rajani (1985) where she played a housewife who can't stand any injustice and solves public social issues. Her portrayal of Rajani made her a household name all over India. Later she played another feminist role in Gulzar

Gulzar (lyricist)

Sampooran Singh Kalra , known popularly by his pen name Gulzar , is an Indian poet, lyricist and director. He primarily writes in Hindi-Urdu and has also written in Punjabi and several dialects of Hindi such as Braj Bhasha, Khariboli, Haryanvi and Marwari.Gulzar was awarded the Padma Bhushan in...

's TV series, Swayamsiddha.

She married her Rajani co-star, Karan Razdan, in 1988 but separated from him in 1995 due to marital unfaithfullness. Priya led a freestyle life wherein she spoke about social issues openly without fear and always expressed her feelings without a bias or prejudice. This side of her fiery personality reflected in her talk shows like Priya Tendulkar Talk Show and Zimmedar Kaun'

Fiery actor-activist and daughter of well-known playwright Vijay Tendulkar, Priya aka 'Rajni', died following a heart attack on 19 September 2002 at her Prabhadevi residence.

She also played an important role as actress in Gujarati movie named "pooja na phool" which was very popular movie of the time.