Actress Padmini Kolhapure, who won the Filmfare Best Actress Award at the age of 17, eloped with a director to get married

Actress Padmini Kolhapure, who was honoured with the Filmfare Best Actress Award at the young age of 17. But her life was not limited to cinematic success; she went against her family's wishes for love and eloped to marry a director. Read the full story to know more.

Padmini Kolhapure: The love story of 90s actress Padmini Kolhapure and film producer Pradeep Sharma, known as Tutu Sharma, is one of the most famous love stories of 1980s Bollywood. In fact, Padmini eloped and got married in 1986 against her family's wishes because her family was against the marriage due to the groom belonging to a different community than their conservative Maharashtrian background.

Married by eloping with the director

Padmini met Tutu Sharma during the shooting of the film 'Aisa Pyar Kahan' (1986), which he produced. Their chemistry on set soon turned into love. Following this, her family, who believed in traditional values, was against a love marriage outside their community.

At that time, the actress received support from her sister Shivangi Kapoor and brother-in-law Shakti Kapoor. The actress's sister and brother-in-law stood by her. Poonam Dhillon, who was Padmini's closest friend at the time (and still is), also helped Padmini a lot. Senior writer and film historian Hanif Javeri recently recalled an untold anecdote from Bollywood. Speaking about this incident, he revealed that Poonam Dhillon and Shakti Kapoor played a major role in Padmini's elopement.

Aisa Pyar Kahan

Speaking about this, Javeri said, "While talking to my friend, Javeri said, 'Pradeep Sharma was making a film called 'Aisa Pyar Kahan', during which he fell in love with his heroine Padmini Kolhapure. The trouble was that Padmini belonged to a very traditional Maharashtrian family, while Tutu Sharma was from Jaipur. Because of this, her parents were strictly against the marriage due to belonging to different communities.'" He further added, "Padmini respected her parents a lot, but she was helpless.

Her friend Poonam Dhillon told her that the only way out was to elope. So, with the help of her brother-in-law Shakti Kapoor and Poonam, she planned everything." Javeri further recalled the moment, "Three days before Padmini's elopement, I had arranged to meet her at her home in Ashoka Apartments, Juhu. But the plan was already in motion. When I reached the building, even the watchman didn't know that she had already left. Padmini had escaped by climbing over the back wall of her house."

The sudden elopement disrupted the shooting schedule of 'Aisa Pyar Kahan', as Padmini's scenes had to be re-shot due to the turmoil in her life for some time. But eventually, her parents accepted the relationship, and everything returned to normal.