Madhubala’s youngest sister Madhur Brij Bhushan recently announced that there will soon be a biopic on the legendary actress.
“I am going in for a biopic on my sister, which will be produced by my very dear friends, very soon. It’s my humble request to all the well-wishers of Madhubala and whosoever is connected with Bollywood or elsewhere to please not attempt a biopic or anything else based on my sister’s life without my permission,” Bhushan said in a statement, according to IANS. The cast and crew of the film will soon will be announced.
Madhubala came to the film industry as Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi. She had started as a child artiste and went on to do films like Mahal, Dulari, Beqasoor, Tarana and Badal which made her the most sought-after actress of her time. Her films such as Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, Howrah Bridge remain alive in the collective imagination.
Perhaps her most iconic role was that of Anarkali in the 1960 K Asif magnum opus Mughal-E-Azam. It was also during this time that she was deeply in love with her co-star Dileep Kumar. According to The Indian Express, her father Ataullah Khan, who was opposed to the match, would come on the sets of Mughal-E-Azam to disrupt shooting. It was probably because of his interference that the two stars did not get married.
She eventually married her co-star Kishore Kumar, in 1960. There were also rumours of affairs with Shammi Kapoor, director Kidar Sharma, Kamal Amrohi, Premnath and even Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, according to The Hindu.
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The actress was born with a ventricular septal defect, which was diagnosed when she had started acting. In 1969, at the age of 36, she succumbed to her illness.
Often called ‘The Venus of Indian Cinema’ or ‘The Beauty with Tragedy’, many in Hollywood likened her life to Marilyn Monroe. A New York Times obituary had described: “Madhubala’s tragic turn in the film as an enigmatic young woman in search of love seemed to foreshadow her own glittering but short life. She died 20 years later as an icon of beauty and tragedy — her dazzling career, unhappy love life and fatal illness more dramatic than any movie she starred in.”