Zeenat Aman was born on November 19, 1951, to a Muslim father and a Maharashtrian Hindu mother. She spent nine years in a boarding school in Panchgani. Her parents divorced when she was two years old.
Zeenat Aman entered the film industry in 1971 and burst the idealistic bubble of the 1950s and 1960s, paving way for a more realistic portrayal of women, who until then were either vamps or sati-savitri. But she made some "foolish mistakes" in her personal life.