Actor Surekha Sikri, whose career spanned theatre, cinema and television, died on Friday in Mumbai. She was 75. Sikri suffered a cardiac a...

Actor Surekha Sikri, whose career spanned theatre, cinema and television, died on Friday in Mumbai. She was 75.
Sikri suffered a cardiac arrest early on Friday morning, her manager told The Indian Express. “She had been suffering from complications arising from a second brain stroke. She was surrounded by family and her caregivers,” the manager said.
Sikri is survived by her son, Rahul. Her husband, Hemant Rege, died in 2009.
Sikri’s ’s performance in the 2018 comedy Badhaai Ho won her the National Film Award for best supporting actress. She played a crotchety mother-in-law whose bark is worse than her bite. Her last appearance was in the Netflix anthology film Ghost Stories, in the episode directed by Zoya Akhtar.
Sikri had previously won National Film Awards for her intense and layered performances in Tamas (1986) and Mammo (1995). Her career in the movies began relatively late, in 1978, with Amrit Nahata’s Kissa Kursi Ka. The political satire about corruption in Indira Gandhi’s government was banned in 1975 and all existing prints were destroyed. The film was remade in 1978. Sikri played Meera Devi, one of a group of schemers.
“I was pretty green regarding film work,” Sikri told Scroll.in in a previous interview. “I recall when I saw the film eventually that they hadn’t kept track of...