The Indian actress Dulari was born Ambika Gautam in Nagpur on April 18, 1928. At the age of 12, she moved to Mumbai with her family, where her father tried his luck as a theatre artist. The oldest of three children, she too began acting in plays at an early age in order to make money and to support her family after her father’s illness. She made a few small appearances in films in her early teens, before getting recognized in what is often thought to be her debut – the Bombay Talkies production, Hamari Baat (1943), by M.I. Dharamsey. In 1952, she married the film sound-recording artist J.B. Jagtap, following which, for a period of about ten years, she reduced the number of films she appeared in. Despite this reduction, she appeared in over ten films in those ten years, including Devdas (1955), Zindagi Ke Mele (1956) and Kavi Kalidas (1959). The fact that she is often believed to have taken a break from films in this period is perhaps an indication of how prolific the rest of her career was. Dulari appeared in over 150 Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and Rajasthani films, in her capacity as the lead actress as well as in numerous supporting roles. Some of her notable projects include Paying Guest (1957), Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai (1961), Teesri Kasam (1967), Padosan (1968), Seeta Aur Geeta (1972), Deewar (1975) and Prem Rog (1982). The last film she acted in was Guddu Dhanoa’s Ziddi (1996), though she had one new release in the form of Yaar Meri Zindagi (2008), a project that was filmed in the early to mid-seventies under the direction of Mukul Dutt, and completed by Ashok Gupta in 1993, but did not release until about one-and-a-half decades later.

In her old age, Dulari suffered from arthritis, because of which she retired from acting. In the last two years of her life, she also suffered from Alzheimer’s, and received much support for her care and treatment from the Cine and TV Artistes Association – a move that was initiated by actress Waheeda Rehman.

On January 18, 2013, Dulari succumbed to her prolonged illnesses and passed away at the age of 86.