Jaddanbai

Jaddanbai Biography

Jaddanbai was one of the foremost female celebrities of Indian cinema, who is known as a film maker, singer and actress. She played a pioneer job in the earliest era of Indian talkies. She started her career as an actress and later became one of the earliest music directors and filmmakers of Indian cinema. However her talents and achievements were overshadowed by her daughter - Nargis who became a legend of Bollywood later. She is the mother-in-law of Sunil Dutt and maternal grandmother of actor, Sanjay Dutt. She has also rendered her voice for ghazals and other musical pieces for All India Radio at several stations.

She hailed from Varanasi and her birth year was 1892 or 1908. She was born in a Muslim family. Her mother was a courtesan from Allahabad. She lost her father at the age of 5 and later she started her career as a singer. As she was not trained in Hindustani music she faced difficulties in singing and hence started her music training under Bhayya Saheb Ganpat of Kolkata, followed by thumri exponent Ustad Moinuddin Khan, Ustad Chaddu Khan Saheb and Ustad Laab Khan Saheb. Then she started recording ghazals with Columbia Gramophone Company and also gave live performances across the country.  

Raja Gopichand in 1933 marked her film journey where she played the title role of a mother. After appearing a few more movies like Prem Pariksha, Insaan ya Shaitan and Seva Sadan, she started her own production company and moved towards direction field. Talashe Haq was the first movie under the new banner and the movie was released in 1935. She acted in this movie, composed music and directed it as well. Nargis was introduced to film field through this movie as a child artist. Madam Fashion, Moti Ka Haar, Hriday Manthan and Jeevan Swapna are other releases.

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Updated: March 31, 2014