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Madhubala has become an icon, she is celebrated as the single most beautiful
actress Hindi cinema has ever produced. In an industry seeped in melodrama and
grand histrionics such a title does not come without a price. She embodied the
image of beauty and a life right out of a Bollywood script.
Madhubala dreamt of becoming a movie star from a young age. In fact a trusted
holy man had predicted that she would have fame and fortune but would lead an
unhappy life and die at a young age.
Her jobless father took her to Bombay remembering the holy mans words. They
struggled for over a year when Mumtaz was chosen for a childhood role in Basant.
Devika Rani was impressed with her performance and changed her name to
Madhubala, who was to appear in Jwar Bhata, in which Dilip Kumar was playing the
lead role. She was unable to work in the movie but this was the moment the
youngster first set eyes on Dilip Kumar.
In her short life, however, she notched up a legion of achievements. She started
working at eight. Father Ataullah Khan had a large brood of children and the
family needed the money. As Baby Mumtaz, she was first seen as a child star in
Bombay Talkies's Basant (1942). She was one of the bones of contention between
her warring parents, Ulhas and Mumtaz Shanti. Madhubala even sang a snatch of
song in this golden jubilee blockbuster.
Subsequently, she did a few unremarkable films as a child artiste, until Kidar
Sharma cast her as a heroine in Neelkamal (1947) opposite another newcomer Raj
Kapoor. Madhubala was barely in her teens and nowhere as beautiful as she grew
to be, yet filmmakers flooded her with contracts. Mohan Sinha alone directed her
in four films in the 1947-1948 phase.
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.
Barring a few stray successes like Baadal and Beqasoor, Madhubala had a string
of commercial disappointments in the early 1950s. She even ventured into
production and made Naata for herself. Mehboob Khan's Amar (1954) was arguably
Madhubala's first truly mature performance. She had worked with Dilip Kumar in
Taraana and Sangdil and turned in sensitive interpretations; but the quiet
romantic despair and steely moral resolve she displays after realising her lover
Dilip Kumar's dark secret (he had seduced Nimmi and now wants to back out) in
Amar was heartbreaking.
The next year she showed a flair for comedy while playing the modern miss in
Guru Dutt's diametrically different Mr And Mrs 55. She was then diagnosed with a
heart ailment that was potentially fatal. Further, talks of the end of her
association with Dilip Kumar escalated when she was replaced in B R Chopra's
Naya Daur (1957) and had to suffer an acrimonious court case.
ortunately, at the box-office, Madhubala finally realised her full potential
soon thereafter when she starred in a row of successes in the second half of
1958: crime thrillers Howrah Bridge and Kaala Paani (Nalini Jaywant may have had
the more dramatic role in the latter, but you could not ignore Madhubala as the
crisply efficient crusading journalist), the musical Phagun and the rollicking
comedy, Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi. Known to be an inveterate giggler in real life (it
unnerved costars and directors till they got accustomed to it) Madhubala
displayed a rare comic electricity with Kishore Kumar. Her full-lipped smiles
and mischievous coquettery perfectly complemented his inspired antics. Eager to
be a bride, she had a low key marriage with the singer-actor.
For a decade, Madhubala had invested her best efforts into Mughal-e-Azam,
whether it was posing as a veiled statue in a heavy zari outfit for hours under
the sweltering sun to get the perfect shot or willingly being shackled with
heavy chains. It all paid off when the film was released in 1960 and declared an
instant classic.
She was stunning in the glimpse we had of her in colour (Jab pyar kiya toh darna
kya), and she spoke her brilliant lines in perfectly pitched cadences with the
bruise of heartache in her voice. After Mughal-e-Azam, the best of times
ironically coincided with the worst of times for Madhubala. She could have had
the best of roles but was advised not to overwork and exert herself. She
valiantly tried to make a comeback in the mid-1960s by completing Chalak but she
was soon confined to her bed. Finally, on February 23, 1969, within days of her
birthday, Madhubala succumbed to a heart attack.
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