Forgotten gems of Bollywood

Bollywood has always been an attraction for all and sundry and will continue to be. People have aspired and will forever continue to aspire to be the reigning kings and queens of the silverscreen, be the glitz and glamour of every party and the topic of every conversation. Beautiful, sizzling and tempting as it seems from the exterior, the inside is equally dark, shady and unfathomably baffling. The inexplicable highs and lows of the Bollywood industry have these once shining stars completely train-wrecked and eventually forgotten...

Vimmi: How can anyone forget the then Calcutta stunner who swept B.R.Chopra with her beauty and charm and got one of the most coveted roles of her times under the BR Films banner with the film Humraaz? The film had Raaj Kumar and Sunil Dutt in the lead male roles. Laced with melodious numbers and some of the finest compositions of music director Ravi, the film was a treat for every moviegoer. Vimmi shot to fame overnight and there were long queues of producers outside her mansion, waiting to sign her for their next. Vimmi was already married to businessman Shiv Agarwal and was a mother of two when she forayed into the tinsel town and took it with a storm. The Humraaz star had everything, wealth, happiness and she looked as beautiful as one could be in any appearance she made. However her expressions in the camera gradually became a cause for concern. She started being labelled as “wooden face” by the magazines. The Chopras did not consider working with her again after Humraaz. Eventually the film offers lessened and her husband started exploiting her. Her business in Calcutta called Vimi Textiles was sold off to pay her debt. She began living with a film broker in her last days and became a severe alcoholic. She died in extreme poverty, alone, uncared for and unloved. Her body was wrapped in a soiled Dhoti and taken to the Santa Cruz crematorium on a channawallah’s thela. No major newspaper covered her death. The obituary column in Indian Express reported how everyone had forgotten her and no one from her family, friends or the film fraternity had attended her funeral. What a sad plight of who once was one of the brightest stars of filmdom!

Lalita Pawar: Once a leading lady in a number of old-world Bollywood productions, this prolific actress had every ingredient required for setting the screen ablaze, but due to an unfortunate accident during the filming of a scene with Bhagwan Dada, her left eye was left squint forever. However this accident proved to be a boon for her because she was forced to abandon lead roles and switch to character roles which won her immense adulation, fame and popularity. In a career spanning 6 decades she had built up a repertoire of more than 700 films. From her benevolent portrayal of Mrs D’Sa in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Raj Kapoor and Nutan starrer Anari (1951) to the scheming evil Manthara in Ramanand Sagar’s TV magnum Opus Ramayan, she lent a special flavour to every character she played. Her career took a backseat in the early 90’s when she was diagnosed with cancer in the jaw. She underwent intensive radiation treatment that made her drastically lose weight and her memory as well. She shifted base permanently to Pune for her further treatment. Sometime after Tuesday , February 24, 1998 Lalita’s family was in Mumbai for her husband’s throat surgery and she was at home, perhaps in great agony, pain and completely helpless when death paid an ill-timed visit. Her death went unnoticed for two days. One is forced to think whether she relived her dying shot in Anari as she lay there laced in agony and helplessness on her deathbed, only unfortunately this time there could not have been any retake.

Bhagwan Dada: He was born Bhagwan Abhaji Palav to a mill worker and had always aspired to be in films. From a very young age, he devoted himself to bodybuilding and eventually landed in stunt films. He got his break doing small roles in silent films, but he was mainly recognised for the all-time hit social film Albela which he made on the insistence of Raj Kapoor. The film was a crude melodrama yet the dance moves and the comedy of Bhagwan Dada and the memorable music of C. Ramachandra ensured repeat audience. This film proved to be a benchmark for him as well because later in his life he forever tried to recreate the same kind of an ambience with all his films but failed miserably. All his films were back to back flops and these lead him to a major financial setback and thus he stopped making films. He had to sell off his 25 room sea-facing bungalow in Juhu and his fleet of seven cars (one for each day of the week). He started doing small roles in outside productions but none of the roles were noteworthy. Most of his friends and associates left him in times when he perhaps needed them the most, apart from C. Ramachandra, Om Prakash and lyricist Rajinder Krishan who continued to meet him when he moved into his Dadar chawl, where life seemed to have come a full circle (a typical mill worker’s house). His health was constantly declining, due to which he was left bed-ridden for the rest of his life, lying on which he used to reminisce about the past by haplessly looking out through the window. In 2002 he passed away in sheer poverty and negligence in the room of his chawl where he had been lying for eternity with just a chowk near his chawl named after him

Cuckoo Moray: She was the legendary cabaret queen much before the advent of Helen and Fariyal. She was a golden star who led an equally gold-laden ostentatious life; she spent extravagantly without a care for tomorrow. She owned three cars (one for her own use, one for taking her dogs for a drive and the other for summoning Helen to play with her sister) in the 50’s she would charge an amount of Rs 6000 for a dance number and back then, that fee was humongous. Cuckoo had contracted a terminal cancer at the age of 52. Her extravagance prompted her to evade income tax due to which her flats and jewellery were all taken away from her. However being the tremendous lady she was, she didnot shed a tear when they ceased to offer roles and the money disappeared instead she would joke about her plight. She had devoted her life to a film director who could not be at her side when she needed him the most. She was reduced to begging on the streets of the then Bombay because she barely had money to buy painkillers. Some actors did try to extend their helping hands though but reportedly it was much too late. Cuckoo died broke, penniless and forgotten.

Ruby Myers: Ruby Myers was popularly known as Sulochana. She was among the early Eurasian stars of Indian cinema. She was a telephone operator by profession before she was proposed a role in films by Mohan Bhavnani of Kohinoor Film Company which she initially turned down because in those days working in films used to be a dubious profession. She was a star with Kohinoor Film Company and then she moved to the Imperial Film Company and became the highest paid movie star in the country. It was rumoured that her salary was even more than the governor’s pay. With the advent of the talkie era, most of her silent era films started to be remade. She was paired with D. Billimoria as her lover and theirs was a hugely popular pair. But once their love story ended so did their careers. Sulochna left Imperial for some other offers; new actresses had entered the scene. She tried a comeback with some character roles but that did not quite do the trick because her sophisticated looks and mannerisms got her very few roles. She can be seen as Ruby Aunty in Julie, as a nun in Dostana as Vaishali’s empress in Amrapali or as Mrs Perin Soli in Khatta Meetha. She was bankrupt with no roles under her sleeve. The lady who once drew headlines for days for doing a long and passionate kissing scene with Dinshaw Billimoria who held her in a tight embrace, an actress who was once was rumoured to be drawing more salary than the governor of India and who owned the sleekest of cars died impoverished and in utter isolation when she did not have enough money to even pay the monthly rent for her flat on Warden Road.