Veteran film actress
Nadira passed away in Mumbai on 9th February,
2006 after a prolonged illness. Even if she had
played no other role other than the scheming Maya
in Raj Kapoor’s
masterpiece Shree
420 (1955), she would always remain the Mud
Mudke Na Dekh girl trying to entice the naïve
hero into crime!
Nadira was born a Jew, Farhat Ezekia in Nagpada,
Mumbai. Her parents split up when she was just
four. Her mother got remarried and Nadira and
her brother were brought up by her grandmother.
She was still in her teens when  she
was spotted by Sardar Akhtar, the great filmmaker
Mehoob Khan’s
wife. After convincing her mother, Sardar Akhtar
took Nadira under her wing and groomed her. Nadira
recalled in an interview…
“She bought me my first bra. I did
not know the use of the garment till then. She
gave me my screen name Nadira as Farhat was thought
to be too soft. My first saree was a gift from
her, so was my first tube of paint. She taught
me to put on make up. I still have that tube which
I use each time I start something new.”
When Nargis
turned down the lead role in mentor Mehboob Khan’s
Aan (1952), Nadira
was cast in her place as a haughty princess and
introduced opposite Dilip
Kumar in this spectacular take on Taming of
the Shrew also co-starring Nimmi and Premnath.
Aan, Mehboob’s first film in colour, even
had a release in London and was much appreciated
even though a critic did quip - it goes aan and
aan and aan! Nadira was now a star.
At this juncture just when things were starting
to look up for her, Nadira married film lyricist
Naqshab. Naqshab made her break her contract with
Mehboob Khan and with her earnings made films
like Nagma and Raftaar exploiting
her star status but basically to move himself
further. Nadira walked out of the marriage leaving
behind all her money and rented a suite in Marine
Drive and continued working!
It was Raj Kapoor who then used Nadira to stunning
effect in what was to become her signature role
in Shree 420 but which also proved to be almost
a death knell in her career. Then still a leading
lady, the film cast her against type as the cigarette
smoking vamp who with her arched eyebrows seduces
the hero to a glamorous and crooked lifestyle
to such strong effect (she has never acted or
looked better!) that she stole a march over both
Raj Kapoor and Nargis in the film and thereafter
was only offered negative roles! She refused most
of them still wanting to play the heroine only
to find few offers now forthcoming. The negative
roles she refused were then offered to Shashikala
making a big star out of the latter thus making
Nadira lose out in the vamp department as well.
But films like Shree 420 and Pocketmaar
(1956) with Dev
Anand prove that there when Nadira was up
to her scheming vamping antics or seducing the
hero through songs like Mud Mudke Na Dekh
or Duniyake Saath Chal Pyaare, she had
no equal!
When Vyjayantimala
turned down the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting
Actress for her turn as Chandramukhi in Bimal
Roy’s Devdas (1955) arguing
that both Paro and Chandramukhi were in fact leading
roles, the award was offered to Nadira for Shree
420. She sensibly turned it down saying she
would win the award on merit or not at all but
never as a hand-me-down.
Nadira tried settling down again but went through
a second, disastrous short-lived marriage to an
Arab.
Nadira’s other really effective and well-known
film was the Kishore Sahu directed and Kamal Amrohi
produced Dil Apna Aur Preet Paraayi (1960)
co-starring Meena
Kumari and Raaj Kumar. Again she came off
strongly in the film as the wife of Raaj Kumar,
who would stop at nothing to keep her husband
though he and Meena Kumari loved each other before
his marriage. It was an interesting film in that
the ‘vamp’ is the wife trying to make
her marriage work while the goody-two shoes heroine
really is the other woman but of course the film
gives full sympathy to Meena Kumari and Raaj Kumar
suffering in unrequited love with Nadira being
a shrew in their way.
She did work on and off sometimes with long breaks
but always made an impact in the films she did
– Chhoti Chhoti Baatein (1965),
Pakeezah (1972),
Hanste Zakhm (1973), Ishq Ishq Ishq
(1974) and especially Julie (1975).
In Julie, as the heroine Lakshmi's mother Margaret
- an Anglo-Indian housewife who considers herself
more English and who keeps her brood together
while facing crises with poise, Nadira came up
with easily the strongest performance of the film
and 20 years after Shree 420, won the
Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress on
merit! In fact when not vamping it, even when
she played the mother, Nadira was rarely the stereotypical,
crying, helpless woman in white. She added rare
dignity and spirit to the various roles of the
mother, aunt or other older woman roles.
Nadira’s other films include Amar
Akbar Anthony (1977), Saagar (1985)
– again making a very strong impression,
Tamanna (1997) and Josh (2000).
She also acted in the Ismail Merchant directed
Cotton Mary (1999) and the Television
Serials Thoda sa Aasmaan and Margarita.
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