[BITList] Actress who was paid more than the Governor of Bombay Presidency

[John Feltham]

The Jews Who Built Bollywood

Not many people realise that the original Bollywood stars were
actually Jewish.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the exotically named Sulochana
raked in the rupees as India's highest paid movie actress. But
the star of such films as Typist Girl, Balidaan and Wildcat of
Bombay, in which she played a staggering eight roles, wasn't
quite the Hindi heroine she was made out to be. The chances
are, however, she wouldn't have found fame among Indian
audiences had she gone by her real name, Ruby Myers.

Born in Pune in 1907, she worked as a telephone operator before
being discovered by one of the head honchos at Kohinoor Films.
Ruby was initially reluctant to try her hand at acting, regarding it
as a dubious profession, but eventually she agreed to give it a go.
It was a wise decision -  the actress, whose on-screen romances
with Dinshaw Billimoria were as legendary as Bogie and Bacall's,
was so successful that the British Empire had to stand up and take
notice.

Alex Hayim, who met a number of Bollywood bigwigs while shooting
his acclaimed documentary Shalom Bombay, says: Sulochana was
the leading lady at the time. She really was the queen. The story goes
that she was getting paid even more than the governor of Bombay.
And that led to a whole debate in parliament because her salary was
bigger than his.

Sulochana's star began to fade in the 1940s, but by then another Jewish
actress had become one of Bollywood's leading lights. Known as Pramila,
Esther Victoria Abraham was born in Calcutta in 1916. Thirty-one years
later, she was to become the newly independent country's first Miss
India. By that time, however, she was already a household name, having
appeared in the hugely successful movies Bhikaran and Mother India.
The latter ran for an incredible 82 weeks and holds the honour of being
the first film from the subcontinent to be screened at Buckingham  
Palace.

And Pramila wasn't the only member of the Abraham family to take to the
big screen. Her sister Romila and cousin Rose had already carved out
careers as Bollywood starlets before Esther got her big break. Indeed in
the 1936 film Hamari Betiyan (Our Darling Daughters), Pramila and Rose
starred alongside each other.

The success enjoyed by these Jewish actresses mirrored the  
accomplishments
of the wealthy Baghdadi community from which they came. Much of modern
day Bombay owes its origins to the philanthropic Sassoon family. But
Sulochana and Pramila's achievements owe less to riches than religion.
Alex Hayim says: At the time, Indian girls weren't allowed to show their
flesh or appear on the stage or screen. It was very much a no-no like
in Shakespearean times - it just wasn't seen as a respectable profession
to go into.

As a result, you had men taking women's roles. It's quite amusing, there
are pictures of big burly men with moustaches and beards trying to act
like beautiful women but, of course, it doesn't really work. It was more
accepted though for Jewish girls or Anglo-Indian girls to be thrust into
the industry limelight. And, because they didn't face much competition
from the majority of the population, they could make their mark.

Not that the involvement of ''nice Jewish girls'' in the film industry
didn't raise a few eyebrows. Mavis Hyman, author of Jews of the
Raj, says: It was certainly seen as a questionable profession. But
I think because there was so much glamour attached to it, people
were prepared to overlook the questionable.

Mavis herself is distantly related to Solychana. ''I believe she was the
granddaughter of my grandmother's brother, although she would have
been my mother's generation.'' Reflecting on how the telephone girl
became a glamour girl, she says: She didn't have any professional
training. It was achieved through contacts and neighbourliness - at
the time there were a handful of Jews involved in the film industry.
And Solychana was also a very great beauty.

Alex Hayim concurs: You have to remember that this was the time of
the Greta Garbos and Marlene Dietrichs, when the beautiful women
were always perceived as very light skinned. And the Baghdadis were
a lot fairer than their Indian counterparts. So they, in a way, were
closer to the image of the light skinned beauty and could relate to the
Hollywood stars of the day as well.

It's not just women though who've made their mark on Bollywood. On
March 14, 1931 the first full-length Indian talkie, Alam Ara, opened in
Bombay. Its script was written by a playwright from the Parsi Imperial
Theatrical Company, called Joseph David. The film starred Prithviraj
Kapoor, father of the late lamented king of Indian cinema Raj Kapoor.
Interestingly, the actor counted a certain Jewish writer Bunny Reuben
as one of his closest friends. Bunny is the Barry Norman of Bollywood,
an acclaimed film journalist, who has penned the definitive biographies
of both Kapoor and Mehboob Khan, one of India's most influential  
directors.
There were also male stars in front of the camera. If you check out the
credits for the classic 1964 movie Haqeeqat and the 1965 film The
Guide, and you'll see that one of the leads in both flicks was an actor
by the name of Levy Aaron.

And so to the present day. As well as Shilpa Shetty, notable  
personalities
on the Bollywood big screen include former MTV Asia presenter and star
of Bombay Dreams, Sophiya Haque. The VJ turned actress made her big
screen debut seven years ago in the black comedy Snip! and describes
herself as ''half British-Jewish, half Bangladeshi.''

http://www.totallyjewish.com/entertainment/features_and_reviews/?content_id=5452



ooroo

If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door.

Anon.



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