Sridevi Kapoor, Bollywood’s First Female Superstar, Dies at 54

Sridevi Kapoor, a Bollywood actress who captivated audiences with her large, expressive eyes and her comic timing, died in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday. She was 54.

The cause was cardiac arrest, The Indian Express reported.

Sridevi, who went by a single name professionally, was one of the only Bollywood actresses to headline box-office hits with no man beside her in a leading role. The Associated Press said she had been described as “the first female superstar in India’s male-dominated film industry.”

“Saddened by the untimely demise of noted actor Sridevi,” Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, wrote on Twitter. “She was a veteran of the film industry, whose long career included diverse roles and memorable performances.”

Sridevi was 4 when she appeared in her first film, the start of a career that would span more than four decades and some 300 titles. She worked on Tamil-, Telugu-, Malayalam- and Kannada-language films in South India before moving onto the Hindi stage.

Among her best-known works were “Mr. India” (1987), “ChaalBaaz” (1989), “Chandni” (1989) and “Lamhe” (1991). After marrying the film producer Boney Kapoor in 1996, she retired from acting for 15 years but returned with “English Vinglish” (2012).

Her final film, “Mom” — in which she played a teacher seeking to avenge the rape of her stepdaughter — was released last year. In its review of the movie, The Times of India wrote that Sridevi “demonstrates why she is the high-priestess" of Indian cinema.

Her stepdaughter was played by Pakistani actress Sajal Ali, whose mother died during filming. On Sunday, Ali posted four words on Instagram.

“Lost my mom again,” she wrote.

In a tribute on Instagram, Shekhar Kapur, director of “Mr. India,” called Sridevi “the most exciting actress I ever worked with.”

“Your energy on camera was scintillating,” Kapur wrote. “There was not a moment on screen that you did not have the audience in your grip. Be it an emotion, a comic moment, a dance.”

The Indian news website The Quint reported that when Sridevi performed “Hawa Hawai,” the signature song of “Mr. India,” Kapur “didn’t know whether to take close-ups of her face to capture those incredible expressions or long shots to capture her dance moves.”

Hrithik Roshan, a co-star in “Bhagwaan Dada” (1986), recalled his hands shaking during his first-ever film shoot. For his sake, he wrote, Sridevi pretended to be nervous, too.

Shree Amma Yanger Ayyappan was born in Tamil Nadu in 1963.

In 1971, seven years before her debut in a lead Bollywood role, she won a Kerala state award for best child artist for her performance in “Poompatta,” a Malayalam-language film. In 1976, she starred in the Tamil film “Moondru Mudichu” as a widower’s new wife. She was just 13.

Her first marriage, to the actor Mithun Chakraborty, ended in divorce.She is survived by her second husband, Boney Kapoor, and two daughters, Jhanvi and Khushi.

The film critic Rajeev Masand wrote on Twitter that he had “never known anyone who was so painfully shy, so quiet off screen, who just transformed into a force of nature when the cameras came on.”

“She was an interviewer’s nightmare,” he wrote, “but the movie-buff’s dream.”