मधुबाला

Madhubala — born Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi on Valentine's Day 1933 — is the most celebrated beauty in the history of Hindi cinema, and one of its finest actresses. Called 'The Venus of Indian Cinema' and 'The Marilyn Monroe of Bollywood', she combined extraordinary physical presence with genuine acting range that ranged from comedic lightness to tragic depth. Born in Delhi to a Pathan family that moved to Bombay when she was very young, she began acting in childhood and became a full heroine in her early teens. Her most celebrated film remains Mughal-E-Azam (1960), but the late 1940s were when her stardom crystallised: in Mahal (1949), she played the mysterious ghost whose haunting presence (and Lata Mangeshkar's voice for 'Aayega Aanewala') defined one of Indian cinema's most iconic horror-romance sequences. She worked with every major director of the era — Mehboob Khan, Bimal Roy, Kamal Amrohi, K. Asif — and every major hero. Her engagement with Dilip Kumar was the era's most publicised romance; their films together (Tarana, Sangdil, Amar) are charged with genuine chemistry. She died of a congenital heart defect at thirty-six, having spent her final years largely bedridden, still married to Kishore Kumar (whom she had wed in 1960 against her father's wishes).