A leading British daily on Wednesday paid tribute to actress Praveen Babi and described her as a 'voluptuous' star who seduced the 1970s Bollywood audience.

Babi was found dead in her house in Mumbai's Juhu suburb recently.

"Babi was an overnight phenomenon because of her wheatish beauty and rakish appeal as a woman who smoked and drank on screen," The Times daily said.

She never broke out of being a glamour actress and is remembered more for the glamour than as a serious performer, read the obituary column.

The daily noted that Babi stayed at the top until the early 1980s, starring in more than 50 Hindi films, including the 1975 blockbuster Deewaar.

It stated within five years after being featured on the cover of the Times magazine in 1977, she began to fade from filmmaking and later spent 10 years abroad, perhaps to escape the attention of gossip columnists.

She returned to India a few years ago and lived alone at her home in Juhu and rarely ventured outside, the paper added.

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