Here’s a great pic of Nadira praying at home:
I found this in the article, Baghdadi Jewish Women In India, which I found via the Web site Point of No Return, which also has a link to the article, Bollywood’s ‘bad girls’: Jewish actresses lit up screen in Indian cinema’s early years. I think I began this journey from some links at the blog 1947/1948.
What a sweet photo! I remember having read that article on Jewish actresses sometime back when I was researching an article.
Richard,
I think Gauhar Jan was of Armenian -Jewish origin. There might have been a few of Armenian origin in the entertainment industry from the early days.
Madhu, yes, it is very sweet, isn’t it? I’ve read about that article before, too, somewhere in the blogging circle. Either you mentioned it, or maybe it was Greta Memsaab?
Swarup, thanks for the info. I vaguely recall that there was a famous Tamil film director in the ’40s and early ’50s who had American roots, who worked on some films that featured the Travancore Sisters. Does anyone know whom I am talking about? I know I have the info somewhere, will have to look into this soon…
You may be referring to Ellis Dungan. Minai had post recently with new material
http://cinemanrityagharana.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/rare-1930s-tamil-film-and-1950s-padmini.html
Thanks. I hadn’t actually read that post from Minai yet (though I probably saw the headline and then just jumped to the clips :) )… Now I recall, a few years ago, Ellis Dungan came up in correspondence with Tom(mydan) after he sent me some clips from Manthiri Kumari. (I had posted the Travancore Sisters dance from that film on YouTube, and at the time, it was the earliest dance from any of the Sisters that I’d seen so far. Unfortunately, it was removed because of copyright claims. But there is always somebody out there who puts it back on YouTube again.)
I watched some of those videos of Manthiri Kumari and was surprised at the quality. The uploaded said that he found a source, gave the link, where he found the videos. I think I owe to you, Minai, Tom Daniel and Atul for finding many of these enjoyable songs and dances.
Richard, I came across that article because I was doing a Google search for stuff on early Hindi cinema and women working in the cinema of that era – and of course there were lots of them back then who were either Anglo-Indians or Jews. It was for an article I was researching for an anthology – a very unusual one. :-)
Swarup, I am glad to be one of the people who helped you find them.
Madhu, I’d like to hear more about that anthology!
It’s being published by Godrej and Boyce, Richard – they were the ones who manufactured India’s first typewriters, and they also manufactured its last one, a couple of years back. In commemoration, they decided they wanted to publish on typewriting and typewriters in India – with articles on everything from typing schools to the stigma often attached to being a typist (in the case of women, that is). I was asked to contribute an article on typewriters in cinema, so I ended up doing a lot of research (and watching a lot of films). Great fun. :-)
Will reproduce the article on my blog whenever the book’s published. Or, if it isn’t published soon, then sometime…