Bengali actress Suchitra Sen turned 79 as she continues to shy away from the prying eyes of the media and stay locked within her apartment on Ballygunge Circular Road.

Beginning her career with the Bengali film Shesh Kothai in 1952, the actress disappeared from public eye after her 1978 movie Pronoy Pasha with Soumitra Chatterjee flopped.

She was paired with Uttam Kumar for the first time in Saarey Chuattar (1953) turning them into overnight icons of Bengali romantic melodrama and they sustained the on-screen chemistry for more than twenty years.

Films such as Shap Mochan (1955), Sagarika (1956), Harano Sur (1957), Saptapadi (1961), Bipasha (1962) and Grihadah (1967) consolidated her as the leading lady of Bengali cinema.

She also ventured into Hindi cinema, but her Hindi movies failed to capture as much limelight as her Bengali movies, baring a few such as Gulzar's Aandhi.

After a career of over 25 years, she retired from the screen in 1978 to a life of quiet seclusion and currently is said to devote her time to a philanthropic, volunteer organisation, the Ramakrishna Mission.

She received a National Award in for her performance in the 1955 Hindi film Devdas but allegedly refused the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2005, preferring to live in seclusion out of the public eye.

Mother to popular actress Moon Moon Sen and grandmother of Ria and Raima Sen, she was the first Indian actress to be awarded at an international film festival (Best Actress award for the movie Saat Paake Bandha in 1963 Moscow film festival).