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Madhubala
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Mumtaz Begum Jehan Dehlavi, famously known by her screen name Madhubala, was born in Delhi, India on February 14th 1933. She was Muslim and an ethnic Pathan, the 5th child of a conservative Afghan family of 11 children. In search of a better life for his impoverished family her father Ataullah Khan relocated them to Bombay. There they struggled for over a year and often frequented the Bombay film studios in search of work. This was when the young Mumtaz entered films aged 9.
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Born in Delhi, Madhubala's real name was Begum Mumtaz Jehan. She commenced her film career as Baby Mumtaz in the 1942 film Basant. The film Neel Kamal (1947) was her first hit. Lal Dupatta (1948), Kamal Amrohi's Mahal (1949), Shakti Samanta's Howrah Bridge (1958) and Navketan's Kala Pani (1958) - confirmed hers as a star presence, their success a prelude to her finest performance as Anarkali in Mughal-e-Azam (1960).
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Madhubala had a long affair with actor and frequent co-star Dilip Kumar. They first met on the sets of Jwar Bhatta (1944), and worked together again in the film Tarana (1951). They ... became a popular romantic team appearing in four films together. Madhubala was known for keeping a low profile, never attending film premiers (with the exception of the film Bahut Din Huwe in 1954) or industry functions and she rarely gave interviews. Film media often speculated over her personal life and romantic liaisons and Dilip Kumar was repeatedly mentioned. These rumours were confirmed with a bold and rare public appearance during their courtship in 1955.
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[A]nd this is a quality Madhubala has in common with Durga Khote and Shabana Azmi -- in spite of her tragic life, she was no victim. She so easily could have been. Take the ingredients of her life story and you have a fillum tear-jerker: the poor family of 11 children, her singular beauty and desperation persuading her orthodox father to put her into films. When she became famous (and rich), the whole family tagged along to share in her prosperity. Her father opposed her marriage to Dilip Kumar, it is said, not on grounds of community or religion -- both were Muslim -- but because the bread (and cake) winner would be lost forever.
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Wealthy business man, Chaubey, his wife, Lily, and daughter, Madhubala, return from Britain in order to visit India and find a suitable groom for Madhubala. They are met at the airport by Vikram, who would like to marry Madhubala. Though Lily fully approves of Vikram, Chaubey dislikes him instantly. They travel to the small town where Chaubey was born, and meet with Gopi. Gopi and Madhubala take an instant liking to each other, and get married. While Chaubey approves of this marriage, Lily does not.
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Keen to secure herself financially, Madhubala worked in as many as 24 films in the first four years of her adult career. But the film that catapulted her to stardom was Mahal (1949), in which she was cast opposite superstar Ashok Kumar, 20 years older than her. Madhubala played the enigmatic gardener's daughter and gave lip sync to Lata's immortal Ayega aanewala in this fascinatingly complex Kamal Amrohi psychodrama. She made a crowd pleasing will o' the wisp.
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Madhubala