'''Nargis (1929-81)'''


Hindi-Urdu megastar born in Allahabad as
Fatima A. Rashid. Daughter of actress, singer
and film-maker Jaddanbai who introduced her
to films aged 5 as Baby Rani in Sangeet Films’
Talash-e-Haq. Early films with Mehboob
including her first lead role in Taqdeer and as
Hamida Bano in Humayun. Best known as
Raj Kapoor’s romantic lead in some of Indian
cinema’s most enduring melodramas: Barsaat,
Andaz, Awara, Shri 420, and Anhonee in
which she played a double role. Kapoor used a
suggestive image from their Barsaat as the
emblem for his R.K. Films. Both Kapoor and
Mehboob in their later films built upon her
early screen image in historicals and
indigenised Shakespearean love tragedies (e.g.
the Kamal Amrohi-scripted Romeo and Juliet)
where she was often presented as the femme
fatale doomed to destruction by her beauty, an
updated version of a stereotype from Islamic
literature and music. Her performances in e.g.
Babul and Jogan also remained the model for
that stereotype. From the beginning, Nargis’s
performances were authentic to a degree
unprecedented in Indian cinema, giving the
Imperial and Sagar Studios’ Arabian Nights
fantasies new layers of meaning. Mehboob
used her as the pivotal figure in his attempts to
merge the symbologies of feudal patriarchy
into those of capitalism (Andaz) while Raj
Kapoor injected Oedipal impulses into his
encounters with ‘tradition’. The pinnacle of her
career was Mother India, an epic pot-pourri
of psychoanalytic, historic and technological
symbols condensing the All-India Film’s post-
WW2 nationalist sentiment. Turned producer
with Nargis Art, producing films directed by
Akhtar Hussain. Married actor Sunil Dutt
(1959) who played her son in Mother India.
Then virtually retired but remained an
important public figure, becoming a Congress
(I) MP in the early 80s, at one time using that
platform for a scathing attack on Satyajit Ray’s
films for exporting images of India’s poverty.
She was much honoured by the Indian and
Soviet governments. Died of cancer shortly
after seeing her and Sunil Dutt’s son, Sanjay, in
his screen début in Rocky (1981).


'''FILMOGRAPHY''' (* as Baby Rani): 1934:
Naachwali*; 1935: Talash-e-Haq*; 1936:
Hridaya Manthan*; Madam Fashion*; 1937:
Moti Ka Haar*; 1942: Tamanna;
Pardanasheen; 1943: Taqdeer; 1944: Anban;
Ismat; 1945: Biswi Sadi; Humayun;
Ramayani; 1946: Nargis; 1947: Mehndi;
Romeo and Juliet; 1948: Aag; Anjuman;
Anokha Pyar; Mela; 1949: Andaz; Barsaat;
Darogaji; Lahore; Rumal; 1950: Adhi Raat;
Babul; Bhishma Pratigya; Birha Ki Raat;
Chhoti Bhabhi; Jaan Pehchan; Jogan; Khel;
Meena Bazaar; Pyar; 1951: Awara; Deedar;
Hulchul; Pyar Ki Baatein; Sagar; 1952: Amber;
Anhonee; Ashiana; Bewafa; Sheesha; 1953:
Aah; Dhun; Pehli Shaadi; Paapi; 1954:
Angarey; 1955: Shri 420; 1956: Chori Chori;
Jagte Raho/Ek Din Raatre; 1957: Miss
India; Mother India; Pardesi; 1958: Adalat;
Ghar Sansar; Lajwanti; 1967: Raat Aur Din.

[[Actor]]