Geeta Bali was born in 1930 in a Mohyal family. Till then, the partition of Punjab did not take place and her birth name was Harkirtan Kaur, a Sikh. After few years, her family shhifted to Bombay and were living in sheer poverty when she started to get profitable breaks in films. She became a popular star in the 1950s. In 1955 she married Shammi Kapoor who was not yet a star and also 1 year younger than her.

Geeta Bali had worked earlier with her future brother-in-law Raj Kapoor in Bawre Nain and with her future father-in-law Prithviraj Kapoor in Anand Math. In contrast to other actresses who gave up films after marrying into the Kapoor family, Geeta Bali kept acting until her death. Her secretary was Surinder Kapoor, father of producer Boney Kapoor and actor Anil Kapoor. She had two children with Shammi Kapoor. Unfortunately, before she died on January 21, 1965 of smallpox. She left behind a daughter Kanchan aged 3 and a son Aditya aged 8. Yogeeta Bali, her niece also made her career into films and married actor Mithun Chakraborty.

Some of her hit films of Geeta Bali include Bawre Nain with future brother-in-law Raj Kapoor, Baaz with Guru Dutt, Baazi (1951 film) with Dev Anand, Jaal, Albela with Bhagwan Dada. She was honored with a Filmfare Nomination as Best Actress for Vachan (1955) and another nomination as Best Supporting Actress for Kavi (1955).