Urmila Matondkar - Why wasn't she as successful as Madhuri or Sridevi?

For the past few months,I've ended up watching a lot of Urmila Matondkar films as they aired on television. Why didn't she achieve female superstar status like Madhuri or Sridevi? She had all the qualities.

Good question. Everything you said about her, looks, talent, dancing skills, is true. But it seemed like she either didn't work with big stars or if she did those movies didn't do well. Tehzeeb and Pinjar had great female protagonists and I thought Urmila was amazing in them. At this point I think she might be at that phase where she's too old to play lead heroine and too young to play mother. Bollywood doesn't come up with great stories for women in their 40s.

I am interested to see everyone else's thoughts on why she didn't make it.

A lot of its luck I believe but for the second half of her career after getting the glamor image for Rangeela she focused a lot on experimenting. At that time off beat cinema didn't have as large of a medium as it does today. The only lady that was lucky enough in the 80s and 90s to make it big commercially and experiment was Sridevi. She did roles like Nagina, Lamhe, made a mark in comedy. But I feel she somewhat had already made it big commercially before she started experimenting.

I am also a fan of her. She did a Marathi film last year which got good reviews but dunno much after that

She was phenomenal in almost all of her movies. I think the problem maybe that she had almost a lot of her movies with RVG whos movies were critical acclaimed but not commercial hits! If she had got the chance to work with YRF or Dharma with a good script, then I think she would have been much more successful.

Originally posted by: evildesire

She was phenomenal in almost all of her movies. I think the problem maybe that she had almost a lot of her movies with RVG whos movies were critical acclaimed but not commercial hits! If she had got the chance to work with YRF or Dharma with a good script, then I think she would have been much more successful.

I love watching her movies, she's perfect😃

Originally posted by: IAmLuvBolly

Good question. Everything you said about her, looks, talent, dancing skills, is true. But it seemed like she either didn't work with big stars or if she did those movies didn't do well. Tehzeeb and Pinjar had great female protagonists and I thought Urmila was amazing in them. At this point I think she might be at that phase where she's too old to play lead heroine and too young to play mother. Bollywood doesn't come up with great stories for women in their 40s.

I am interested to see everyone else's thoughts on why she didn't make it.

Urmila was a good actress, but sometimes I thought she was also too sexy. Madhuri and Sridevi were classy actresses who could do classical dance. Urmila was a good actress, but she was also kind of a sex symbol. Plus she didn't have the classical dancing skills that Madhuri and Sridevi had.

Originally posted by: grumpydwarf

I hear she turned down roles in DTPH and KKHH 😕

Impact of television. 😆

Urmila never got to work with big banners.

Also what she did back then seems normal now but it was considered cheap or shocking back then.

90s heroines had to be ideal, homely or cute types. MD and Sridevi have done their share of intimate scenes or "vulgar" songs but they did them as part of whole gharelu act. MD is Ganga in Khalnayak and bahu in Beta.

Urmila films were too modern I guess, in era of family films, comedies and romances. Call the public hypocrite but they can take girl doing Choli ke peeche type songs as a part of her mission or compulsion only, in rest of the scenes they want her to be Ganga or Saraswati to reassure themselves that they didn't watch anything inappropriate.

Biggest hits of that era have heroines doing the dulhan/bahu/beti acts.

Urmila, Shilpa, Sonali got relegated as glam dolls only. Urmila was never taken seriously as an actress till Bhoot and Pinjar.

Urmila also killed her career doing too many RGV films. He might have given her Rangeela, Satya, Bhoot but she should have moved on.

Other girls surged ahead in meantime and Urmila became history.