Nagma was a leading actress, especially in the South Indian film industry. At her peak in the 1990s, she "dominated Tamil cinema,".
Nagma was born as Nandita Morarji to Sri Arvind Pratapsinh Morarji, a Hindu textile entrepreneur and Seema Sadhana, a Muslim. Nagma who is also known a Namratha Sadhana was born on 25th December 1974 and is known to be a practicing Christian and is involved in politics too, lending her support to the Congress party.
After her parents divorced, her mother married Chander Sadhana who is a movie producer. Nagma has two half-sister by her mother’s re-marriage called Jyothika and Radhika. Jyothika is an established actress. She also has two half-brothers, Dhanraj and Yuvraj, by her father’s second marriage.
Nagma has led a very different life from her half-sister Jyothika, who was not successful as a star in Bollywood but who found major success in Tamil movies. Unlike Nagma, Jyothika's public image is free of controversies.
Nagma began her acting career in Bollywood and acted in a few movies but shifted south where she met with greater success before returning to Mumbai.
Nagma, who has had a successful career in movies since she was sixteen years old, also runs a boutique in Mumbai called Nagma’s and is an Art of Living instructor.
Fluent in Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and English, Nagma is notable for having acted in a broad range of India's languages: Hindi, Telugu,Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, and now Marathi.
She has been romantically link with various men at various times like cricketers Khiche Khan and Saurav Ganguly as well as the Tamil actor Sarath Kumar.
Nagma’s debut movie was in Bollywood with Baaghi (1990) opposite Salman Khan; she was 16 at the time.. She played a woman who is forced into prostitution and how she escapes it with the help of her lover. The movie was one of the most successful releases that year.
Along with Karisma Kapoor, she was also one of the female leads in 1994's Suhaag which also featured Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgan. Despite this initial success, she moved south to star in Telugu and Tamil movies at the behest of her friend Divya Bharti.
She became a major star in the south and remained so for much of the 1990s, at least until 1997, and reportedly had a temple dedicated to her by fans in Tamil Nadu.
Her major hits in Telugu include 1993's Gharana Mogudu with Chiranjeevi, Allari alludu with Nagarjuna and Major Chandrakanth with NTR and Mohan Babu. Her main Tamil hits were Baasha with superstar Rajnikanth and 1994's Kadhalan with Prabhu Deva. In 1995, Kadhalan is said to have become the first Tamil movie to be dubbed into Hindi, in which it was renamed Hum Se Hai Muqabala.
During this period she was rumored to have been involved in a relationship with Tamil actor Sarath Kumar, who was in significant debt at that time. Most of her performances in this era were glamour oriented.
Following alleged death threats by Sarath Kumar, and as her southern movie career was stalled by type-casting, she moved back to Mumbai.
Again based in Bollywood, she focused on supporting roles in major hits such as 2000's Chal Mere Bhai, which reunited her with former costars Karisma Kapoor, Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt.
Media reports in 2001 linked her romantically with cricketer Khiche Khan, although both denied the story. The same controversy happened between Nagma and Souvrav Ganguly.
Within a year, Nagma enrolled in the spriritually-oriented Art of Living course, eventually teaching it herself in Mumbai and elsewhere. While based in Mumbai, she continued to worked in some Telugu and Tamil movies, such as Allari Ramudu and Citizen, playing significant supporting roles, as well as taking leading roles in some Malayalam films.
Nagma is also a major star in Bhojpuri movies, where she has again found success as a leading lady. Her debut Bhojpuri film 'Panditji Bataayina Biyaah Kab Hoii' was a huge hit. After that the offers poured in and they were too good to be ignored. She was notably successful when paired against the "Big Boss" reality show participant Ravi Kishan... She won a Best Actress award at the 2005 Bhojpuri Film Awards for her performance in Dulha Milal Dildar.
A source says, ‘Bhojpuri hero Ravi Kishan and nagma were romantically and erotically involved. They have worked together for 13 Bhojpuri films out of which 11 are super hits. In fact, there was a time when Ravi Kishan was almost willing to divorce first wife Preeti for the sake of nagma. But, Nagma called off the relationship with Ravi Kishan. Because Ravi introduced Rambha into Bhojpuri films. Rambha replaced Nagma in two films with Ravi in the lead. She felt that Ravi was having an affair with Rambha.’
After her liaison with Ravi Kishan ended, Nagma has moved on to the other Bhojpuri superstar Manoj Tiwari. Nagma and Manoj have been dating for barely a few weeks.
In 2002, she played the aunt's role to Jr. NT Rama Rao in 'Allari Ramudu.' After that, she was not seen in Telugu films.
In 2006, she made her Punjabi film debut, starring alongside Raj Babbar in Ek Jind Ek Jaan. She also acted in a Kannada movie Hrudayavantha in 2003; a Bengali movie Pariraam in 2005; a Marathi movie Thamp Lakshmi Thamp and Subway.
Nagma has been out of action for a while. She has no movies in her hand either in Bollywood or Tollywood. However she continues to be in the limelight. Nagma was "a prominent campaigner for the Congress party... on the election trail for the party in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Nagma has refused being part of the reality show Bigg Boss. This is the fifth time that the actress has been offered to be a participant on the show. And interestingly, she has refused the offer every time. It is not very clear as to why Nagma is always saying no to the offer.