Having a career which spanned over four decades, Bollywood’s veteran actress Sridevi, the wife of producer BoneyKapoor, died at the age of 54, late in the night reportedly due to cardiac arrest in  Dubai, where she had gone along with her family to attend her nephew Mohit Marwah’s wedding.

The sudden death of the star – who ruled the commercial space and did critically acclaimed films “Sadma” and “Lamhe” and was especially noted for her impeccable timing as a comedienne – has shocked Bollywood and legions of her fans. The actor who made her debut on silver screen at the age of four in Tamil movie Thoonaivan, had worked in 300 films.

Sridevi known for her versatility as an actor, made her Bollywood entry in 1975 with the blockbuster romance Julie, and it was with Jitender starrer “Himmatwala” that she gained commercial success. She had also ruled the Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada film industry. In 2013, she received Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award. In the ’80s, though Bollywood was dominated by male superstars, Sridevi’s luminous style and impeccable comic timing brought her the tag of Bollywood’s first woman superstar. Her name, most of the times, guaranteed a film’s success and her dance moves in songs like “HawaHawai”, “Kaatenahikat-te” and the snake dance in “Nagina” were copied by legions of fans.

Sridevi, who had taken a long break from the movies after her marriage to Boney Kapoor, had returned to the silver screen six years ago with “English Vinglish” and worked in three films since.Sridevi stunned fans with her performance as a villainous queen in “Puli“, which also marked her comeback to Tamil cinema after a gap of more than two decades.
Last year, she was seen in revenge-drama – “Mom” – opposite Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Akshaye Khanna. She shot for a special appearance in superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming film – “Zero” – which releases in December.

“She will be in the textbooks of Indian cinema; Sridevi was a complete actor in her own right, flawless and dignified,” said Subhash Ghai, who was her director in ‘Karma‘ in 1986, when Sridevi was still finding her foothold in Bollywood.

Filmmaker ShekharKapur said “with Sridevi gone, an era is over”.
“Like life turning a new chapter. A beautiful story just ended. An amazing spirit just vanished leaving us with amazing love, memories, and incredible grief,” he tweeted.