Remembering singer and actress Noor Jehan 1925-2000

Source:wikipedia
Noor Jehan ( 21 September 1925 – 23 December 2000), also known by her honorific title Malika-e-Tarannum , was a Pakistani singer and actress who worked first in British India and then in Pakistan. Her career spanned more than six decades (1930s–1990s). She was renowned as one of the greatest and most influential singers of all time especially throughout South Asia and was given the honorific title of Malika-e-Tarannum in Pakistan. She had a great command of Hindustani classical music as well as other genre of music.
Noor Jehan began to sing at the age of five and showed a keen interest in a range of styles, including traditional folk and popular theatre. Realising her potential for singing, her mother sent her to receive early training in classical singing under Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. He instructed her in the traditions of the Patiala Gharana of Hindustani classical music and the classical forms of thumri, dhrupad, and khayal.
At the age of nine, Noor Jehan drew the attention of Punjabi musician Ghulam Ahmed Chishti, who would later introduce her to the stage in Lahore. He composed some ghazals, na`ats and folk songs for her to perform, although she was more keen on breaking into acting or playback singing. Once her vocational training finished, Jehan pursued a career in singing alongside her sister in Lahore, and would usually take part in the live song and dance performances prior to screenings of films in cinemas.
Theatre owner Diwan Sardari Lal took the small girl to Calcutta in early 1930s and the entire family moved to Calcutta in hopes of developing the movie careers of Allah Wasai and her older sisters, Eiden Bai and Haider Bandi. Mukhtar Begum encouraged the sisters to join film companies and recommended them to various producers. She also recommended them to her husband, Agha Hashar Kashmiri, who owned a maidan theatre (a tented theatre to accommodate large audiences). It was here that Wasai received the stage name Baby Noor Jehan. Her older sisters were offered jobs with one of the Seth Sukh Karnani companies, Indira Movietone and they went on to be known as the Punjab Mail.
In 1935, K.D. Mehra directed the Punjabi movie Pind di Kuri in which Noor Jehan acted along with her sisters and sang the Punjabi song "Langh aja patan chanaan da o yaar", which became her earliest hit. She then acted in a film called Missar Ka Sitara (1936) by the same company and sang in it for music composer Damodar Sharma. Jehan also played the child role of Heer in the film Heer-Sayyal (1937). One of her popular songs from that period "Shala jawaniyan maney" is from Dalsukh Pancholi's Punjabi film Gul Bakawli (1939). All these Punjabi movies were made in Calcutta. After a few years in Calcutta, Jehan returned to Lahore in 1938. In 1939, renowned music director Ghulam Haider composed songs for Jehan which led to her early popularity, and he thus became her early mentor.

In 1942, she played the main lead opposite Pran in Khandaan (1942). It was her first role as an adult, and the film was a major success. The success of Khandaan saw her shifting to Bombay, with director Syed Shaukat Hussain Rizvi. She shared melodies with Shanta Apte in Duhai (1943). It was in this film that Jehan lent her voice for the second time, to another actress named Husn Bano. She married Rizvi later the same year. In 1947, Rizvi and Jehan decided to move to Pakistan. They left Bombay and settled in Karachi with their family.

Three years after settling in Pakistan, Jehan starred in her first Pakistani film Chan Wey (1951), opposite Santosh Kumar, which was also her first Pakistani film as a heroine and playback singer. Shaukat Hussain Rizvi and Noor Jehan directed this film together, making Jehan Pakistan's first female director. Jehan's second film in Pakistan was Dopatta (1952) which was Produced by Aslam Lodhi, Directed by Sibtain Fazli and assisted by A. H. Rana as Production Manager. Dopatta turned out to be an even bigger success than Chan Wey(1951).
During 1953 and 1954, Jehan and Rizvi had problems and got divorced due to personal differences. She kept custody of the three children from their marriage. In 1959, she married another film actor, Ejaz Durrani, nine years her junior.
Durrani pressured her to give up acting, and her last film as an actress/singer was Mirza Ghalib (1961). This contributed to the strengthening of her iconic stature. She gained another audience for herself. Her rendition of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's "Mujh se pehli si mohabbat mere mehboob na maang" is a unique example of tarranum, reciting poetry as a song with superb music of Rasheed Attre in the Pakistani film Qaidi (1962). Jehan last acted in Baaji in 1963, though not in a leading role.
Jehan bade farewell to film acting in 1963 after a career of 33 years (1930–1963). The pressure of being a mother of six children and the demands of being a wife to another fellow film actor, forced her to give up her career. Jehan made 14 films in Pakistan, ten in Urdu and four in Punjabi as a film actress. After quitting acting she took up playback singing.
Jehan visited India in 1982 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Indian talkie movies, where she met Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in New Delhi and was received by Dilip Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar in Bombay. She met all her erstwhile heroes and costars, including Surendra, Pran, Suraiya, composer Naushad and others.
Jehan suffered from chest pains in 1986 on a tour of North America and was diagnosed with angina pectoris after which she underwent bypass surgery. In 2000, Jehan was hospitalised in Karachi and suffered a heart attack. On 23 December 2000 (night of 27 Ramadan), Jehan died as a result of heart failure.
Seen here with Dilip Kumar in ‘Jugnu’ (1947)

Her  Hindi films
1935 Sheela
1939 Gul Bakawli
1939 Imandaar
1939 Pyam-e-Haq
1940 Sajani
1940 Yamla Jat
1941 Chaudhry
1941 Red Signal
1941 Umeed
1941 Susral
1942 Chandani
1942 Dheeraj
1942 Faryad
1942 Khandan - Second Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1942
1943 Naadaan
1943 Duhai
1943 Naukar - Fifth Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1943
1944 Lal Haveli
1944 Dost
1945 Zeenat - Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1945
1945 Gaon Ki Gori - Second Highest Indian Grossing Film of 1945
1945 Badi Maa - Third Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1945
1945 Bhai Jaan
1946 Anmol Ghadi - Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1946 (with Surendra (actor))
1946 Dil
1946 Humjoli
1946 Sofia
1946 Maharana Pratap
1947 Mirza Sahibaan - Fourth Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1947
1947 Jugnu - Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1947 (with Dilip Kumar)
1947 Abida
1947 Mirabai