Noor Jehan

Noor Jehan Biography

Noor Jehan was the leading female singer of Bollywood yesterdays. She was an actress also. She was a legendary singer who lived in British India before partition and shifted to Pakistan after 1947. Her career spanned seven decades and she was renowned as one of the greatest and most influential singers of her time in South Asia. She is called as Malika-e-Tarannum (The queen of melody). Noor Jahan sang 127 songs in Indian films and has made 81 Indian films from 1932 to 1947. Her birth name is Allah Wasai.

When Lata Mangeshkar entered music industry, Noor Jehan was ruling as the queen and when she left India, Lata got her position. According to Lata, Noor Jehan was her model and when she entered film world, she faced criticisms due to single style and voice similar to Noor Jehan. Later she developed a distinct style of her own to become the top singer of film industry. In 1945, Jahan played the lead role, alongside Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, in the movie Bari Maa.

Noor Jahan was born in a Muslim family in Kasur, Punjab of British India. In 1935, she acted as a child artist in K.D. Mehra’s Pind di Kuri, followed by Missar Ka Sitara (1936) and Heer-Sayyal (1937). As a heroine, her debut movie was Khandaan in 1942, opposite Pran. She sang for Syed Shaukat Hussain Rizvi’s movie for another actress, Duhai (1943). They got married the same year. But they got separated later and in 1959 she married, Ejaz Durrani, nine years her junior.

After settling in Pakistan, Noor Jahan starred in her first film in Pakistan, Chan wey (1951), her first Punjabi movie. This movie was directed by her, along with Shaukat marking a new history in Pakistani cinema as the first female director. Her debut movie as a playback singer in Pakistan was for the movie Salma in 1960. She quit acting at that time. Earlier she has rendered her voice for the song - Kaisa Naseeb Layi Thi, for the movie, Jan-e-Bahar (1958). In 1957, she was awarded the President's Award for her acting and singing capabilities.

She has visited India in 1982 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Indian talkie movies and she was received by Lata Mangeshkar and Dilip Kumar. On December 23, 2000, Jahan died as a result of heart failure at the age of 74.

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Updated: October 09, 2013