Zaheeda Hussain (born October 9, 1944), commonly known by her mononym "Zaheeda", is an Indian film actress who worked in Bollywood in the 1970s. Born in Mumbai, she is daughter of Akhtar Hussain, who was film producer and son of director Jaddanbai. Thus, her aunt was Bollywood actress Nargis Dutt, and her uncle was character actor Anwar Hussain. She acted in several movies such as Anokhi Raat (1968) with Sanjeev Kumar, Gambler (1971) and Prem Pujari (1970) with Dev Anand. After playing his heroine, she famously turned down the role of playing Dev Anand's sister, in cult hit Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971), as she found it too bold, a role which was later done by Zeenat Aman and became her breakthrough film. After that her films like Teen Chor and Prabhat flopped ending her career. Zaheeda also acted in a DD1 serial Aamrapali (TV serial) in 2002.

Biography

Zaheeda later married a businessman, Kesri Nandan Sahay and retired from the film industry. She has two sons, one of which, Nilesh Sahay, made his feature film debut with choreographer Ganesh Acharya's' Angel in 2011.