Saroj Khan, Choreographer Who Made Bollywood Sparkle, Dies at 71 - The New York Times

Khan went on to choreograph some of the most memorable performances of the 1980s and ’90s.

Saroj Khan, a Bollywood choreographer whose film career spanned more than 60 years, and who created some of the industry’s most famous dance scenes in the 1980s and ’90s, died on Friday morning at Guru Nanak hospital in Mumbai.

She joined the industry as a 3-year-old child actress in the early 1950s, and she became an assistant choreographer at the age of 12.

Saroj Khan was born Nirmala Nagpal in Mumbai on Nov.

Khan was born in that room, the first of six children.

To supplement the family’s income, her father managed to get her work in Mumbai’s booming film industry as a child actress at the age of 3, under the name Saroj.

In a 2012 documentary, “The Saroj Khan Story,” Ms.

Khan described how her mother struggled to feed her and her siblings, and how they often went to bed hungry.

Khan worked up the courage to ask the matinee star Shashi Kapoor for help.

While still a young girl, she became an assistant to the choreographer B.

Khan married Sardar Roshan Khan, a businessman, taking his surname.

She is survived by a son, Raju Khan, also a choreographer, and a daughter, Sukaina Khan.

Khan struggled for years as an assistant choreographer before getting a break in 1974 with the thriller “Geeta Mera Naam,” the directorial debut of the actress Sadhana, who was a fan of her work.

Khan worked on was a 2019 period drama, “Kalank,” which reunited her with Ms

Khan won three National Film Awards and eight Filmfare awards, the most any choreographer has received