Rekha cried due to Big B's friendship with an Iranian actress

During the 70s and 80s, Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha were in the news due to rumours of their link-ups and romance off-screen. Though, neither of the two have confirmed the news. But during those times, many in the industry had spoken about the duo.

Many instances were also specifically mentioned in Rekha's autobiography which was written by Yasser Usman. One of the incidents mentioned in this book, Rekha: The Untold Story, published by Juggernaut, was about a fight between Rekha and Bachchan caused to due to his alleged closeness to an Iranian actress on the sets of 'Laawaris'.As mentioned in the book, Prakash Mehra recalled witnessing the fallout firsthand.

He was quoted saying, “It was at Natraj Studio, on my sets. There was a heated exchange of words between her [Rekha] and Amitabh. She cried some more. I called her and told her to take it easy. All this drama was over Nellie."The matter escalated so much that a gossip magazine Stardust had mentioned that there was also physical altercation during this incident with some slapping and beating involved. Though, one isn't sure if there's truth to it.

After this, Rekha was visibly upset and decided to leave 'Silsila', thus, returning her signing amount to Yash Chopra. In a scramble to keep the film alive, Chopra began reworking the cast. While Amitabh remained, Padmini Kolhapure was brought in to portray the ‘other woman’, and Poonam Dhillon was being considered for the role of the wife — the part that eventually went to Jaya Bachchan. However, none of it felt right.

The film was drifting away from Chopra’s original vision.Chopra next roped in Parveen Babi as Rekha’s replacement, with Smita Patil set to play the spurned wife. The revamped cast was flown to Kashmir for the film’s first shoot. Yet, despite everything being in motion, Chopra wasn’t satisfied. The new ensemble, he felt, simply lacked the emotional “edge” he had once envisioned.Eventually, it took him a lot of convincing and efforts to finally get Rekha on board. In an old interview, Ranjeet had said that Parveen Babi had cried and was terribly upset when she was replaced by Rekha eventually.