Veteran Marathi & Hindi film, TV and stage actress Sulbha Deshpande is no more. She passed away today, after being ill for sometime. She was 80. Four months ago MarathiMovieworld met Sulbhatai during the shooting of her Marathi film ‘Braveheart‘ , when she was shooting a serious scene with a child star. This was the last film, we saw her performing. Incidentally, she was also part of a popular TV serial ‘Asmita‘, but had not seen her on small screen, perhaps due to her illness. Sulbha Deshpande, besides performing in Marathi films, had also acted in over 73 movies mainstream Bollywood as well as art house cinema, like ‘Bhumika‘ (1977), ‘Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan‘ (1978) and ‘Gaman‘ (1978) as a character actor, apart from numerous TV series and plays. A leading figure in experimental theatre movement of the 1960s, she was associated with Rangayan, and great personalities like Vijay Tendulkar, Vijaya Mehta, and Satyadev Dubey. In 1971 she co-founded, theatre group, Awishkar with her husband Arvind Deshpande, and also started its children’s wing, Chandrashala, which continues to perform professional children theatre

She was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1987. She also received the award, Tanveer Sanman in 2010. She has also been honoured by various other awards like Nanasaheb Phatak Puraskar, Ganpatrao Joshi Puraskar, Vasantrao Kanetkar Puraskar, Kusumagraj Puraskar, Rangabhoomi Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar and Sarvashrestha Kalagaurav Puraskar by Sanskruti Kaladarpan.