He was born at Kolkata"s Kali Dutta lane, as the youngest child of Tara Kumar Bhaduri, a theatre actor and Prava Devi, a theatre actress. With the backing of her mother, his acting career started at the age of only seven at Srirangam Theatre where he played the role of Apurba in Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay"s Bindur Chele.
He did female impersonation in Jatra, a form of Bengali folk theatre. In 2010, he starred in a Bengali Arekti Premer Golpo which was directed by Kaushik Ganguly and written by Ganguly and Rituparno Ghosh. Later in 1939, his family moved to Badamtala Lane of Goabagan area of Kolkata.
Noted actor and singer, Ketaki Dutta is Bhaduri"s youngest sister.
Later in 1955, he performed in Bengali named Ali Baba where he played the female character of Marjina. In the 1960s he was the highest paid "actress" of Bengali.
Chapal Bhaduri revived into fame after Navin Kishore of Seagull Foundation for Arts had made a 44-minute documentary on the actor in 1999. Performing the Goddess — The Chapal Bhaduri Story focuses light on the man, who challenged financial penury to create a new performance — a monologue of Goddess Shitala.
A tele-film Ushnotar Jonne, directed by Kaushik Ganguly also depicts part of his life.
In this tele-film he made a short cameo appearance. The third one is Arekti Premer Golpo (Just Another Love Story) (Bengali-English), a feature film directed by Koushik Ganguly in which he narrates his life on camera.
