Jews have been prominent in Bollywood

By Navras Jaat Aafreedi, PhD

GREATER NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh, India — India’s only Academy Award winning screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a European Jew, who was based in New Delhi for 24 years, from 1951 until 1975, when she moved to New York, passed away on April 3, 2013. She wrote for films directed and co-produced by an Indian, but for Hollywood and not for the Indian cinema. Born in Cologne, Germany in 1927, she settled in India after marrying a Zoroastrian from the country. While living in India she wrote a number of novels, and it was her novel The Householder (1960) which she adapted for the celluloid in 1963 and thus established collaboration with the famous Merchant-Ivory Productions that produced 40 films and found a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest partnership in independent cinema history. It was followed by a number of other collaborations with the Merchant-Ivory Productions, including an adaptation of her novel Heat and Dust (1983), a novel that won her the Booker Prize in 1975; A Room with a View (1985), for which she won her first Oscar; Howards End(1992), her second Oscar win; and The Remains of the Day (1993), for which she was nominated for a third Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, though she did not win. Her collaboration with the Merchant-Ivory Productions was a rare marriage of the followers of the three Semitic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam. She was a Jew, James Ivory, Christian and Ismail Merchant, Muslim.

But there were also Jews who worked for Bollywood and they played as important a role in Bollywood in its formative years as they did in Hollywood, yet there is just one Jew left in Bollywood today as an actor, and this last surviving Jew is so only according to the Jewish oral law Halakha, as he is a Muslim by faith. According to Halakha anyone born of a Jewish mother is Jew irrespective of who his father is and what his own faith is. The actor Haider Ali’s mother Pramila nee Esther Victoria Abraham (1911-2006), a film star of the silent era, was Jewish, who got married to the Muslim film actor Kumar, but stayed back with their son Haider Ali, when Kumar decided to migrate to Pakistan. Pramila, who was chosen the first Miss India in 1947, was not the only Jewish film actress who married a Muslim. Nadira (1932-2006) and Pearl (1931-2000) did the same.

Nadira was twice married to Muslims, though the marriages could not last; first to the Urdu poet Naqshab and then to an Arab Sheikh. As for Pearl, she got married to Alyque Padamsee, who played Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982). It was probably his parents’ interfaith marriage that inspired Ali to bring into sharp focus the story of the Muslim Mughal emperor Akbar’s love for his Hindu Rajput queen by co-writing the story and screenplay of the 2008 historical drama film Jodha-Akbar, in which he also appears leading a Sufi mystical song, “Khwaja mere Khwaja!”.

Born in 1911 in a Baghdadi Jewish family of Kolkata, Pramila (nee Esther David Abraham), won six art diplomas from London in the course of a brilliant academic career. She became the headmistress of Talmud Torah Jewish Boys’ School, and it was a casual visit to the Imperial Studios in 1935 to watch a shooting, that brought her into films. Besides, her sister Sophie, known as Romilla, and her cousin Rose, were already in the film industry. There were many from the Jewish community who were in the Hindi film industry then. Pramila acted in many memorable films like Jungle King (1959), Our Darling Daughter, Maha Maya (1936), Basant (1942), Ulti Ganga, etc. During the course of this acting career, she married the famous star of those years, Kumar, a Rudolph Valentino kind of figure. Together, they produced many films under the banner of “Silver films”. They gave encouragement and opportunity to many. There were many occasions when Pramila felt driven to do everything she could for her country. After the Indo-China war in 1962 when Tibetan refugees poured into India, Pramila was one artist who organized many shows to raise funds for them.

Apart from being an actress, Pramila was a well known model and the favourite of the famous photographer A. J. Patel. She was the first Miss India in 1947 (the pageant was not organized by The Times of India Group then, as it is now). She was also a costume and jewelry designer and a consultant for set designs. Pramila died in Mumbai on 6th December 2006. Most of the earliest female stars of the silent era of the Indian cinema were Jewish. This is significant considering the fact that it is the world’s biggest, the most diverse and the most popular film industry and also one of the oldest. It produces approximately a thousand films annually, three times more than Hollywood does, in twenty different languages, and has an audience of over three billion in India and millions overseas. By the late 1990s, India had overtaken Japan and America as the producer of the largest number of feature films per year.

For centuries, it was considered demeaning for women to appear on the stage or to become professional musicians, dancers or singers in India. Among the first to break the taboo were India’s Jewish women, who took up film acting, braving all the risks involved to their reputation, and otherwise. Their entry encouraged educated women from other communities to follow suit. These women also began to appear on the stage and became well known dancers and singers. The fact that films were silent at first helped the Baghdadis, one of the three Jewish communities resident in India, to overcome the handicap of language. With the introduction of talkies, there was less scope for actors who did not know Hindi. The Arabic speaking Baghdadis had adopted English, the language of India’s colonial masters as their mother tongue, instead of making any attempt to master any Indian language, after settling in India. With a few exceptions, the Baghdadis identified themselves as far as possible with the rulers, the British, and not the ruled, the Indians, as it was disadvantageous, they believed, to identify with the Indians, including the Bene Israel Jews of the Indian state of Maharashtra, who were a conquered race; and moreover there was no Indian citizenship as such. They felt that as Jews from another, albeit Asian, country they could remain distinct and escape the worst aspects of the British-Indian relationship. Thus, this inability to deliver dialogues in Hindi or any Indian language put an end to their successful careers in the Indian cinema, with the exception of a few.

India’s first female star was Patience Cooper, born in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in 1905. She started as a dancer in Brandmann’s Musical Comedy, a Eurasian troupe, before being employed by Madan’s Crinithian Stage Company. She went on to play the female lead in various Madan Theatres films, the prominent ones being Nala Damayanti (1920), Dhruva Charitra (1921), Ratnavali (1922) and Noorjehan (1923). It was with her wonderful performance in the film Nala Damayanti that she came to be recognized. This supernatural drama was directed by an Italian, Eugenio De Liguoro, known in Italy for his Orientalist spectacles like Fascino d’Oro (1919). Cooper played the protagonist Suniti in the mythological drama Dhruva Charitra (1921), based on the legend of Dhruva whose quest for eternal knowledge and salvation was rewarded by her being turned into the brightest star in the heavens. The film, again directed by Eugenio De Liguoro, was made with an eye on the international film market and featured many Europeans in the cast.

It was her role as the devoted wife Leelavati in the film Pati Bhakti (Devotion to Husband) (1922) that won her great applause and is regarded as her greatest film, in spite of the fact that it also got embroiled in a controversy, when the conservative Censor Board demanded that a dance number be removed on the grounds of obscenity.

Cooper also became the first actress in Hindi cinema to play double roles with her films Patni Pratap (The Aura of a Wife) (1923) , in which she played twins, and Kashmiri Sundari (Beauty) (1924), in which she played both mother as well as daughter.One of Cooper’s last major films was Zehari Saap (1933), which was about an incestuous relationship between a chieftain and his adopted daughter. Her last film was Iraada, released in 1944.

Sulochana (nee Ruby Myers, 1907-83) was the force that changed the very nature of Indian Cinema. Before her, the socially degrading job of playing cinema heroines was generally given to slim young men, as even whores shied away from exhibiting themselves before the whole country. Brown-eyed Sulochana fulfilled the criteria of an ideal Indian beauty. After starting her career with adventure hits like the Wildcat of Bombay wherein she essayed eight roles; Telephone Girl; Typist Girl: all reminiscent of Hollywood’s The Perils of Pauline series, Sulochana dabbled in several genres like fantasies (Heer Ranjha), and stunt films such as Punjab Mail. She then starred in three romantic superhits in 1928-29 with director R. S. Chaudhari, Madhuri, Anarkali and Indra B.A. which established her as the silent era’s first and foremost star.

The extent of her fame is well illustrated by the fact that it was also used to promote Khadi, the Indian handspun and hand-woven cloth. A hugely popular dance of Sulochana’s from the film Madhuri was added to a short film on Mahatma Gandhi inaugurating a Khadi exhibition, which also happened to be India’s first talkie venture. Ironically, when Sulochana’s home company Imperial launched the first genuine talkie film Alam Ara in 1931, it was not she, but her rival Zubeida who was chosen to play the female lead, because of her command over Hindi. But the indomitable Sulochana acquired such proficiency in Hindi in just a year’s time as to make an ego-affirming comeback with the record-breaking talkie version of Madhuri. It was followed by further talkie versions of her silent films like Indira (now an M.A.) and Anarkali, which repositioned her at the top of the heap. She once again reclaimed her positive distinction as the highest paid star of India cinema. She owned the sleekest of cars (Chevrolet 1935); and had one of the biggest heroes, D. Billimoria, as her lover. Her strong fan base empowered her to dictate terms to Imperial and ensure that between 1933 and 1939 she worked exclusively with her handsome Zoroastrian paramour.

Their love affair spanned the decades of 1920s and 30s. With it ended their film careers too. She left Imperial only to find no outside offer, which landed her up in a grave economic crisis. In 1953, she appeared in her third Anarkali, but this time in a supporting role. However, she was still powerful enough to excite controversy. In 1947, Morarji Desai, an Indian political leader, was appalled by the episode of an ageing fellow professor falling for Sulochana’s vintage charms in the film Jugnu. The roles, though, kept diminishing, leading her to bankruptcy. She died a lonely death. The original glamour queen of Indian cinema, Sulochana was once famous for drawing a salary larger than that of the Governor of Bombay.

In the decades of 1920s and 1930s, a Bene Israel, Firoza Begum (nee Susan Solomon), starred in a succession of Hindi and Marathi films, like Bewafa Qatil, Prem Veer and Circus Girl. Nadira (nee Farhat or Florence Ezekiel) (1932-2006) was born in a Jewish family, resident in Maharashtra on 5th December, 1932. Nadira’s parents divorced when she was four; and she was brought up by her maternal grandparents. Her mother deserted her husband for another man, only to be abandoned by him after the birth of their child, a son. Forced to live by herself, she got a job at the Royal Air Force Unit, which she lost at the time of India’s independence.

Nadira recalls: “My younger brother and I were quite happy with our grandparents, but mother was lonely and miserable. So we went back to her.” The loss of her mother’s job landed the family in a financial crisis. “I really did not know how mother managed,” says Nadira. But her mother courageously faced her hardships, and tried give her children the very best of everything. Nadira studied at St. Anthony’s Convent and was a good and popular student. “We never had second-hand books or old pens or pencils. It was always the best for us,” remembers Nadira. Though a Jew, she was strongly attracted towards Christianity and knew all its prayers, to the great annoyance of her strict disciplinarian mother. “I used to show all my bruises to St. Anthony’s statue in school and ask him to forgive my mother,” says Nadira.

Nadira showed great interest in dramatics since a very early age. She participated in dramatics, and when she was twelve, played Judas in a school play. And, when the girl who was to play Mary did not turn up, Nadira volunteered to play her role too.

She passed her SSC examination with flying colours. In 1949, she was spotted by the wife of the famous film director Mehboob Khan, when she was sheltering from a thunderstorm in a building. He cast her in the lead role of his technicolour extravaganza, Aan (1952). Nadira, who had seen only two films – Laila Majnu and Mirza Sahib, and had never been photographed, “not even by a Brownie camera,” says, “I was flabbergasted; I had no acting experience. I did not know a thing about Hindi films.” Her mother, who wanted Nadira to settle down and marry a nice boy, was dismayed. Despite her pathetic financial condition, it was only after a great deal of persuasion that her mother agreed to a contract with Mehbbob Khan, according to which Nadira was to be paid Rs. 1,200 per month, an unheard of amount in those days.

Aan is a romantic film, in which a common man played by Dilip Kumar (Hindi cinema topmost hero in those days) struggles against royal tyranny, but falls in love with the haughty princess (Nadira). Aan proved to be a major hit and her debut performance in the film won her rave reviews. Nadira was surrounded by a coterie of male admirers. While Mehboob Khan flirted with her, an Urdu poet Naqshab won her over with his couplets; and Nadira ended up marrying him and infuriating her mother. Nadira starred in Naqshab’s productions, Nagma and Raftaar (1955), but she felt exploited as she was forced to promote the films by posing for sexy posters, and on the other hand to observe purdah (Islamic seclusion). Naqshab even insisted that she cancel her three-year contract with Mehboob Khan; and on top of it all he announced that they were not married. Disgusted, Nadira walked out, leaving behind all her earnings.

Her foreign features and thin figure, which was quite unlike the buxom heroines patronized by film fans, made it difficult for her to resume her career. Fortunately, she landed up a vamp’s role in Raj Kapoor’s Shri 420 (1955).

The role required her to hold a smouldering cigarette in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other. The film’s great success made it her landmark style; and it was followed by negative roles in films like Ek Nazar (1972), Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi and Hanste Zakhm (1973), which won her great accolades. Few could portray vindictiveness and malice with Nadira’s panache. She brought great style to the portrayal of the quintessential Westernised vamp of Hindi films. Her role as a Christian mother in Julie (1975), was a landmark performance, which fetched her fifteen awards. She also appeared in a few English films, notably the Merchant Ivory films The Guru (1969) and Cotton Mary (1999). She was well paid for her efforts and was one of the first Indian actors to own a Rolls Royce.

But her personal life remained chaotic. She married again, this time an Arab, who promised her the moon and boasted that he owned a kingdom which he would lay down at her feet. Within hours of the marriage, though, Nadira realized she had been duped; her husband was a pauper. The marriage did not last more than a week. For years, her divorced parents, who still lived in the same house, were her liability. Relatives she had never known, sought her help. At one time, she had fourteen of them living with her. Yet, in her last days, Nadira had no one to take care of her. While her real brother was in Israel, her step-brother lived in London. “I brought them up like sons,” she moaned, “but they don’t even keep in touch with me.” With more than 250 films to her credit, Nadira was reluctant to probe the reasons behind the decline of her career. “I have always dressed well, lived well. Maybe, producers felt. I was too well off to bother about doing character roles.” Nadira passed away in a hospital in Mumbai on 9th February 2006 at the age of 73, suffering from a paralytic stroke combined with a heart attack.

Pearl Padamsee (1931-2000), a Baghdadi Jew, was a distinguished actress of theatre and films. She added a new dimension to Indian theatre in general and Mumbai in particular, and presented the audience with many a notable actor and play. Her Rise and fall of Arturo Ui  is considered a milestone in Indian theatre. She emerged as a prominent face of cross-over cinema and worked in many national and international film projects, in both Hindi and English, in a film career spanning over four decades. Some of her significant films are Baaton-Baaton Mein (1979), Junoon (1979), West is West (1987), Such a Long Journey (1998), Khatta Meetha, Kama Sutra, etc. She had adopted her Khoja Muslim husband Alyque Padamsee’s surname.

A well known Jewish film actor was David Abraham (1908-81), who was awarded the Padmashri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, for his roles as a character actor and for his promotion of Indian sports. He started his film career with the 1941 film Naya Sansar and went on to act in over 110 films. He worked with India’s best film-makers ever, like the Academy Award winner and recipient of Dada Saheb Phalke Award, Satyajeet Ray; Dada Sahib Phalke Award recipients – Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Raj Kapoor, Shakti Samant, Basu Chatterji, Manoj Kumar, etc. Some of his most memorable films are Shatranj Ke Khiladi, Boot Polish (1954), Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978), Golmal (1979), An Evening in Paris (1968), Baaton Baaton Mein (1979), Abhiman (1973), etc. He is best known for his portrayal of John Chacha in the 1954 hit Boot Polish. He passed away on 28th December 1981.

Among the earliest script writers for the silent films was a Bene Israel Jew, Joseph David (1872-1942), a theatre manager of the third decade of the twentieth century, who was also the author of plays in Marathi and Urdu. Today, three of his plays – Queen Esther, The Maccabeen Warriors and Prince Ansalom – are archived in Israel. He wrote the screenplay and some of the music of Alam Ara (1931), the first full length talkie of Indian cinema. Alam Ara betrays the influences of Hebrew, Hindi and English stories. In one scene, the wicked queen imprisons a young man who fails to respond to her advances, like the Biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. And the sub-plot of a lover couple separated, reminds of Rama and Sita from the great Hindu epic Ramayana, with perhaps a touch of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Joseph David was born in the Penkar clan of Bene Israel Jews in the Dongri-Umarkhadi area of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in 1872.

Although David did not receive much of schooling, he acquired fluency in Hebrew, English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi and many other Indian languages. Driven by his passion for English plays, David joined the Parsi Theatrical Company as a stagehand. He was given small improvisational parts as an actor. But, with his talent for music composition and way with words, he soon found himself working as a playwright. He made a breakthrough when he wrote the screenplay for India’s first talkie, Alam Ara, which was released on 14th March 1931. The film was a huge success. Tickets were sold for twenty times the admission rate as crowds thronged to see the first talkie venture of Indian cinema. After Alam Ara, he joined its production house, the Imperial Film Company, as a playwright and also got involved with film-producing, directing and music composing. Other screenplays followed: Sati Sone (1932); Lal-e-Yaman (1933), to which he also composed the scores; and Desh Deepak (1935). Joseph David died in 1942.

A noted documentary film-maker, who came to be recognized as the father of Indian animation, was a Baghdadi Jew. Eza Mir (1903-1993) was born as Edwin Myers in Kolkata (formerly called Calcutta) in October 1903. He adopted the name Ezra Mir because he felt that his real name did not sound Indian. He graduated from the University of Calcuttta in 1921 and began working for a large commercial company in Kolkata. Bored with commerce, he joined Madan Theatres and worked in two silent films (1922-23). In 1924 he won a sweepstake prize which funded his trip to the United States, where he struggled for eighteen months before finding work as an assistant editor at the Universal Pictures Corporation. He also worked in the script department (1927-29) before joining United Artists as story editor. With the advent of sound he returned to India and worked for the Imperial Film Company (1931); Sagar Film Company (1932-34); and finally Madan Theatres (1935-36). Once again, he left for a study tour of Europe, returning to direct a film for Ranjit Fim Company (1938). Mir started making documentaries in 1941 after being inspired by the March of Time newsreels. He worked for the Film Advisory Board (1940-41); Information Films of India (1942-46); India Film Enterprises (1949-51); and the Films Division, where he was Chief Producer (1956-61). During his five year tenure, the Films Division produced over 400 documentaries.

In 1960, Ezra Mir used G. K. Gokhale to animate a social awareness animation called A Great Problem, which dealt with family planning issues, and is probably one of the earliest pro-social animations, which was internationally acclaimed. Ezra Mir produced This Our India in 1961, which was animated by G. K. Gokhale, with music by Vijay and directed by Pramod Pai. He also worked as Producer-in-Charge for the Children’s Film Society of India (1962-64) from 1941 till his retirement from the Films Division in 1961. He was responsible, in various capacities, for over 700 documentaries. He was the first president of the Indian Documentary Producers’ Association (1956). Ezra Mir directed Pamposh, the first Indian color film processed completely in India, using Gevacolour stock. The first Indian film to have an English version – Nur Jehan, was directed by Ezra Mir. Some of his most important films are Symbolesque (silent/USA production/1929); Road to Victory (1941); Voice of Satan (1941); and Whispering Legend (1941). He was awarded the Padmashri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, in 1970 for his great contribution to Indian cinema. He passed away in Mumbai on 7th March 1993.

One of the most prominent film-journalists, cine-personality-biographers and film-historians of India was a Bene Israel, Bunny Rueben (1926-2007). He also produced a film and was also the Director of Publicity to the most famous film-makers of India. In the 1970s, when Steven Spielberg decided to shoot portions of his sci-fi adventure Close Encounters of the Third Kind in India, he signed Bunny Reuben as the Director of Publicity, the best name in the field. Reuben started his film-journalistic career in the 1940s with his contributions to the film-weekly Movie Times. It was his comparative study of the two male leads in the film Andaaz, entitled “Who was better in Andsaz – Dilip Kumar or Raj Kapoor?” that brought him into limelight. This article immensely contributed to a significant increase in the readership of Movie Times.

Reuben went on to become a full-time film-journalist with the leading National Standard, now known as The Indian Express. From the National Standard, also known as Sunday Standard, he moved on to Bharat Jyoti, the Sunday edition of the Free Press Journal. Reuben later joined India’s foremost film-magazine Filmfare, a publication of The Times of India Group. But in the 1950s Reuben left Filmfare to pursue his dream of producing a film, because Filmfare’s policy did not permit a journalist to pursue any other occupation. Aashiq (Lover), the film he produced and wrote for, was not a commercial success, as the subject of the film was well before its time, of a man torn between his family and his muse. Reuben finally returned to film-journalism by joining a new film-magazine Star & Style. He rose to become its editor in 1969 and continued to work in that capacity until 1974. In 1975, Reuben became the founding-editor of the magazine Cine-Blitz, and within a year brought its circulation to 100,000, at par with other established magazines of the day. Reuben also wrote a full-page column in the Sunday tabloid The Daily, now defunct, and wrote regularly for Sunday Free Journal, Sakal, Kesari, Maharashtra Herald, and many others. From 2004 to 2005, Reuben wrote a series of articles on all the great stars he had personally known since the early 1950s for the daily newspaper The Asian Age.

Reuben also established himself as a definitive biographer of film-personalities with his string of biographies, viz., Raj Kapoor – The Fabulous Showman (1988), Mehboob –India’s DeMille, Dilip Kumar: Star Legend of Indian Cinema – The Definite Biography (2003), and …And Pran (2004).

Reuben regularly gave lectures at a number of colleges teaching Mass Media, notable ones being the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication and the Indira Institute of Mass Communication. In 2001 he gave a lecture at the Frankfurt Film Museum on “The Social Significance of Raj Kapoor’s and Mehboob Khan’s films”. In 1990, Reuben was honored with the Twentieth Century Cine-goers Award for “excellence in film-journalism”, and in 1994 the Sahyog Foundation Award for the Best Film Journalist was conferred upon him for “his pioneering and ongoing contribution in book form to the literature on Indian Cinema”. Bunny Reuben passed away in February 2007.

Considering the remarkable contributions of Jews to Indian cinema, it is surprising that it produced only six films with Jewish characters, with only two of them with Indian Jewish characters.

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Aafreedi is an assistant professor and postgraduate programme coordinator of the Department of History & Civilization at the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Gautam Buddha University, India.  This article is reprinted from the Canadian-based Weekly Press Pakistan