Begum Para was Bollywood’s glamour to give first ever bold photoshoot, quit films, moved to Pakistan
Begum Para was Bollywood’s glamour to give first ever bold photoshoot, quit films, moved to Pakistan
Notedly, Kiara Advani, Disha Patani to Deepika Padukone, a number of actresses ignited the internet with their bold photoshoots. However, not many are aware of the first Indian actress to do a bold photoshoot in the 50s.
It was none other than Begum Para who gave the first ever bold photoshoot while working at the age of 17 and she was called the glamour girl of Bollywood. She shared a special connect to Dilip Kumar and Amrita Singh.
Jhelum born in British India (present-day Pakistan), Begum Para was brought up in Bikaner. The actress had an elder brother Masrurul Haq, who had stepped into Mumbai’s Bollywood, the ‘Mecca’ of Hindi films in 1930s and met and fell in love with the Bengali actress Protima Dasgupta, and married her.
After this, whenever Begum Para used to visit her brother and sister-in-law, she used to tag along with her sister on movie sets and on many occasions get-togethers. People would get quite impressed with her looks and offer her a lot of roles.
Begum Para then made her debut in the film Chand, from Prabhat Studios in Poona. The film turned out to be a huge success and started getting paid about Rs. 1500 a month. Soon after this Begum Para’s sister-in-law made a movie named Chhamia based on the novel Pygmalion, which again was a huge success and Para signed a lot of films after this.
After featuring in several films like Sohni Mahiwal, Zanjeer with Ishwarlal and Dikshit, Neel Kamal with Raj Kapoor; Mehendi with Nargis; Suhaag Raat with Bharat Bhushan and Geeta Bali and Jhalka among others, in 1951, Begum Para did a bold photoshoot for Life magazine which created a stir in the industry and made her popular as Bollywood’s glamour girl, Bombshell etc.
She was also offered to play Nigar Sultana in Mughal-e-Azam but she refused to do it because she considered it against her image.
Begum Para’s last role was in the movie Kar Bhala in 1956, after which she quit films. The actress was married to Dilip Kumar’s bother Nasir Khan and had three children, Lubna, Nadir, and actor Ayub Khan with him.
Amrita Singh is also connected to Begum Para as she is her grand niece. Amrita Singh is the daughter of Ruksana Sultana, sister of Begum Para. However, after her husband’s death, she moved to Pakistan in 1975 to be with her family.
After 50 years break, Begum made returned to the big screen with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariyaa, which failed to impress the audience and proved a debacle at the box office. In 2008, the actress died in her sleep at 82.
News Edit K.V.Raman
