Meena Kumari

The image of her limpid eyes and tremulous voice remains to epitomize the tragic heroine of the Hindi film. Mayer named the actress Hedy Lamarr after Barbara La Marr, who had been one of his favourite actresses. Pakeezah (1971), jointly conceived with her husband, was completed shortly before her tragic death on March 31, 1972 and was her last great performance. In the 1930s, Louis B. Her screen image of a tormented, self-mortifying woman became an extension of her own personality. The child was renamed Don Gallery and grew up to become an actor and a sometime boyfriend of Elizabeth Taylor; he now lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Like the heroine of the film, she increasingly took to drink and embarked on the road to gradual ruin. Some years after her death, it was revealed that she had mothered an illegitimate son, Marvin Carville La Marr, who was adopted after her death by the actress Zasu Pitts and her husband, film executive Tom Gallery.

Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (Master, Mistress and Servant 1962) became in more than a symbolic way the crossroads of her life. At the time of her death she was married to the actor Jack Dougherty. A collection of her poems in Urdu under the pen name Naaz was published after her death. Lamarr married for the first time at the age of seventeen, and during her short life was married five times. She was also a poet in her own right, and was able to lend to the characters she played a certain poetic tenderness and intensity. The newspapers of the day referred to her as "The Girl Too Beautiful To Live", a slight variation on the title that had been closely associated with her. However, her strong independent spirit would not be subordinated by her husband's genius and they eventually separated in 1964. She died from tuberculosis and nephritis in Altadena, California and was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

She married Kamal Amrohi who directed some of her best films. During this time she became addicted to heroin, and her addiction, combined with her busy social life and gruelling work commitments took their toll on her health. One reason for this popularity was her private life, which at times rivaled the plot of any movie. Her film career flourished, but she also embraced the Hollywood nightlife, remarking in an interview that she slept no more than two hours a night, as life was too short to waste on sleep. However, her studied reserve, chaste diction and -- most of all -- extraordinary voice, that struck the right balance between the erotic and the pathetic, ensured her place in the hearts of the Indian movie-going public. Over the next few years she acted frequently in films, and was widely publicised as "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World". The following years saw her appear in a number of films, where she played many, largely indistinguishable, self-mortifying women. After marrying and moving with her husband to New York, New York, La Marr found employment writing screenplays and her association with movie makers led to her returning to Los Angeles and making her film debut as an actress in 1920.

She was never really able to shake off this image of a tragidienne, and at times this severely impeded her in the exercise of the full range of her histrionic talents. Changing her name to Barbara La Marr, she continued working on the fringes of showbusiness, but at that time her main ambition was to become a writer. Her evocative portrayal of the perennially suffering Indian woman struck a responsive chord in millions of women. While still in her teens she was arrested for dancing in a burlesque club. By 1953, Meena Kumari had starred in three other commercially successful films: Daera, Do Bigha Zameen and Parineeta. Parineeta became a turning point in her career. After spending her early years in a small town, she was impressed by the nightlife of the rapidly growing Los Angeles. She therefore heralded a new era of actresses that included Nargis, Nimmi, Suchitra Sen and Nutan. She was known after her adoption as Rheatha Dale Watson.

Meena Kumari entered the limelight at a time when histrionics were taking over from glamour (as epitomized by such beauties as Naseem, Veena, Sofia and Jayshree). Born in Yakima, Washington, La Marr moved with her adoptive parents to California while in her early teens. Her early films were rather unremarkable and mythological. Barbara La Marr (July 28, 1896 - January 30, 1926) was an American film actress. She took on the name Meena Kumari for Vijay Bhatt's immensely popular musical Baiju Bawra. Mahajabeen acted in her first film at the age of six.

Her mother Prabhawati (later Iqbal Begam), a stage dancer and actress, was a descendant of the Tagore family. Her father Ali Bakhsh was an actor in films and Parsi theatre, apart from composing music for a few films. She was born Mahjabeen Bano in Bombay. She shot into stardom in 1952 with the release of Baiju Bawra.

Meena Kumari (August 1, 1933 - March 31, 1972) was an Indian actress, whose name has become synonymous with the tragic heroine. NewDelhi: East West Press, 1974. The Kaleidoscope of Indian Cinema. Mahmood, Hameeduddin.

London: British Film Institute; New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994. Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul.