She established herself as a popular Hindi film actress with Shakti Samanta's Kashmir Ki Kali in 1964. Samanta again cast her in many more hit films, notably
An Evening in Paris (1967), the first appearance on a two-piece bikini of an Indian actress, (Sadhana had appeared in one-piece bikini in earlier films) which not only shocked conservative Indian audiences but also set off a wave of bikini-clad actresses carried forward by Parveen Babi (in Yeh Nazdeekiyan, 1982), Zeenat Aman (in Heera Panna 1973; Qurbani, 1980) and Dimple Kapadia (in Bobby, 1973), but established Tagore's role as somewhat of a sex symbol in Bollywood.
Wearing a bikini put her name in the Indian press as one of Bollywood's ten hottest actresses of all time, and was a transgression of female identity through a reversal of the state of modesty, which functions as a signifier of femininity in Bombay films.
But, when Tagore was the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, she expressed concerns about the rise of the bikini in Indian films.
Samanta later teamed up Tagore with Rajesh Khanna for movies such as Aradhana (1969) and Amar Prem (1972), where played the role of Pushpa, the courtesan in city of Kolkata, again opposite Rajesh Khanna, who himself gave his often quoted dialogue in the film, "Pushpa I hate tears..". Other directors paired them together in Daag (1973), Maalik (1972) and Safar (1970). She starred in Gulzar's 1975 film, Mausam, and she played a supporting role as heroine Sarita Choudhury's mother in Mira Nair's 1991 film Mississippi Masala.
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