Biography of a Forgotten Film Star

After months of watching current Bollywood and Tollywood movies, I have gone backwards, thanks to an Indian film class, to films of the 1950s. Most of the films focus on the challenges and possibilities inherent in the newly independent country. Socialist propaganda is woven throughout the dialogue and many of the films, though they may deal with complex and still controversial topics like adultery and paternalism, usually end with an "I love India' slogan or song.

For me, the films are comfortable to watch. The women walk with the assurance of Katherine Hepburn (some even wear the high-waisted pants) and the dialogue is clever and noted with sexual innuendo. So far, I have watched 2 hit movies from the '50s, each with almost identical casts, and both times my attention was drawn away from the main character to the side and background of the film, the domain of the supporting role. In fact, the same actress was in both films, first playing the best friend of a woman unjustly accused of infidelity and then as a prostitute dancing in a gutter bar. In both movies her main role is as a dancer and singer (though a playback singer actually sings all the roles, so she just moves her mouth in time). Her dancing is kathak-style and often overly emphasizes the Eastern aspects of Indian dance, the punjabi pants, dark eyeliner and snakelike-head and body movements.

It is in Awara, the second film we watched in class, that she plays a prostitute, who dances and nearly-charms the hero with her dance and song. This time she is dressed like Mary Margaret from 'Bye Bye Birdie', a tight crop-top and slit skirt, but her attitude is sexual and dangerous and much more interesting than the white-sareed heroine. She is the center of the movie for only 3 minutes and 25 seconds.



I looked up the movie to make sure it really was the same actress and found her listed only as "Cuckoo". Perplexed, I continued to search, but everything I found related to her was just as enigmatic. In the 40s and 50s she was apparently very well known and loved, always acting in the supporting role, often as the seductress. Her performances and songs were so popular that directors would put her in a movie for only one song, as with Awara, and the song would completely eclipse the movie. She followed in a line of kathak dancers and trained her usurper, an actress named Helen.

And that's all I found. One scant online biography reads:

Cuckoo died a slow lingering death, penniless and unattended.

It seems ridiculous that a star of over 40 Hindi films can be so unnoticed historically. Of course, the film world is at once alluring and damning for young women, especially during the 40s and 50s. 'Daughters' and 'mothers' weren't allowed to get near a filmset, lest their morals and modesty fled down a dark alley. So, maybe, her name wasn't given for fear of what it would reflect on her family? And the allure is more the less we know, but it seems strange that now when Bollywood had moved well past the back-room dances scenes, that someone would release her name, that someone would seek her name.