Aditi Rao Hydari, John Abraham, Ameesha Patel: Has skin show helped these actors?

Mumbai: These gorgeous people made an entry into B-town as seedha saadha actors and transformed into bombshells soon after. But did it help their success rate? You tell us….

Bollywood has changed drastically over the last decade. Today it’s not just good acting skills that matters in B-town. A little skin goes a long way when it comes to attracting attention and bringing the masses in to the theatres. Here are some beauties – and a hunk – that entered B-town fairly successfully, but went for a makeover on and off screen to sustain their careers. Did taking the skimpy route work for them? You tell us… Aditi Rao Hydari – This lady made her debut in 2007 with Delhi-6, playing Abhishek Bachchan’s aunt. She soon realised that it required more than acting skills to make a mark in B-town. She quickly went for a makeover and chose to show off a bold and sassy avatar in her second film ‘Yeh Saali Zindagi’. Steamy scenes and a lip lock with her ‘London Paris New York’ co-star Ali Zafar didn’t really bring the much needed boost to her career. She then stepped into the ‘Murder’ franchise and displayed her sensual side in ‘Murder 3’. And now this pretty and petite actor will be seen in Akshay Kumar’s ‘Boss’, upping the glam quotient as she walks out of the water in a pink and orange bikini. That’s not all – the actor recently shot a spread for a men’s magazine and got temperatures soaring. Posing in lingerie, flashing her immaculate skin and showing off those luscious curves, Aditi was a sexy siren. Nobody could say that she was once the quintessential girl next door, can they? And so far, the skimpy style has worked for this lass! Rani Mukerji – Not many could have expected Rani Mukerji to resort to skin show after having done such challenging roles – and winning awards a-plenty – but the actor seemed to have no other way out of the doldrums that her career had sunk in to. She appeared in a bikini bra in a sequence in ‘Dil Bole Hadippa’, but did it pay off? Considering the box-office collections of the film, no. The film failed to impress anyone, not the critics, not the masses. Her super-sexy bareness in ‘Aiyyaa’ didn’t give the required boost to her career either. After that came ‘Talaash’, where Rani was draped in simple sarees and…guess what! The audiences just couldn’t stop applauding her fabulous acting in the film. We think that Rani should concentrate on impressing with her talent instead of her curves. Ameesha Patel – Despite her fashion-forward wardrobe in her super-successful debut film ‘Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai’, the petite Ameesha Patel came across as a girl next door. And the ‘cute’ tag stuck to her for many films thereafter. All covered up in ‘Gadar’ opposite Sunny Deol, AP managed to win over the audience once again. And then the road sloped steeply downhill for her filmi life. And after a break for getting into shape and revamping her love life, Ameesha bounced back in a sexy avatar with a special appearance in the Rani Mukerji-Saif Ali Khan starrer ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’. While ‘Lazy lamhe’ got her eyeballs, it didn’t really fuel her fast-failing career. She went on to play the perfect blonde in ‘Race 2’, but was completely eclipsed by Deepika Padukone and Jacqueline Fernandes’ combined star presence. Ameesha has now decided to go ultra-glam for her debut production venture featuring herself – ‘Desi Magic’. In fact, at the launch event she posed in lacy lingerie! Will she manage to bring back the desi magic she had in her debut or will it be yet another dive? Minissha Lamba – She wanted to be a journalist, but destiny and ambition had other plans for her, Minissha made her B-town debut in ‘Yahaan’, which was a sensitive and well-crafted film. She managed to cultivate a girl-next-door image until the film Kidnap, in which she went all sexy and sassy with an allegedly…err…enhanced figure. But her new avatar didn’t really go down well with the audiences and, like her bikini-clad self, sank. So to win the hearts of her fans again, she reportedly underwent reverse surgery to get back to her cute girl-next-door image. However, she denied all these reports. Be that as it may, neither her girl-next-door image nor her sexy avatar helped her to make a mark in Bollywood. John Abraham – We know that this story is really about the beauties of B-town. But men can be beautiful too, no? After all, remember John Abraham pulling down his trunks in ‘Dostana’? Now that was a sight for the aesthetically deprived, no? We all know that this hunk never really had a problem in taking off his shirt. He showed off his muscular upper body in films like ‘Kaal’, ‘Paap’ and ‘Jism’. But despite being the beefcake with pecs to die for, his career didn’t managed to go high enough. But courtesy Karan Johar and ‘Dostana’, down went his yellow trunks and up went his career. There was that scene straight out of a ‘James Bond’ film – walking out of the water in tight little swim trunks with lots of very hunky body on display. Sigh! Well, all we can say is that skin show worked wonders for this handsome lad! bollywoodlife.com/ Vinod Talreja