“Shammi Kapoor fell in love with Geeta Bali on the rebound of Nutan,” says his wife Neila Devi – Exclusive – Times of India

Shammi Kapoor married Geeta Bali in 1955 but Bali died due to smallpox in 1965. Four years later, Shammi got married to Neila Devi. She’s largely been away from the limelight and has never done any interview on camera. Until now, when the very graceful Neila, decided to speak to ETimes in a tell-it-all chat. In this interview, Neila spoke at legnth about Shammi’s first wife Geeta. She confessed that Geeta played a huge role in giving Shammi the boost which he needed.
She said, “My husband had told me everything about her. Do you know they would race with each other in their cars? Geeta Bali’s demise hit Shammi ji very hard. He had started staying at Raj Kapoor ji and Krishna ji’s house. He started drinking non-stop. Krishna ji played a big role in getting him back to what he was. She even looked after Aditya and Kanchan, then. Aditya was studying in a boarding school then and Kanchan too had started staying with them. After my marriage, I got Aditya back to Mumbai.”

Neila revealed that Shammi ji fell in love with Geeta after his relationship with Nutan. She expressed, “Geeta Bali gave Shammi ji the boost he needed. She had a terrific sense of humour. He asked her to accompany him on the shoot of ‘Rangeen Raaten’ and she wanted to be with him; so she even agreed to do a boy’s role in that film, wherein the heroine was not Geeta Bali but Mala Sinha. I think they fell in love on the rebound of Nutan (Nutan and Shammi Kapoor were in a relationship).”
However, Bali didn’t say yes to Shammi immediately. “Geeta Bali helped him to become Shammi Kapoor, The Rebel Star. It was on the sets of ‘Rangeen Raaten’ that they fell in love with each other. And then, they too got married in Banganga in the middle of one night. She didn’t say ‘yes’ to him immediately, though. It is so sad that she died so soon.”

Watch the full interview here: