For the town in France, see Nargis, Loiret; For the 2008 cyclone which devastated the Irrawaddy Delta and the city of Yangon, see Cyclone Nargis, for the flower, see Nargis (flower), for the other actress, see Nargis (actress)

Nargis Dutt (Hindi: नर्गिस; 1 June 1929 – 3 May 1981), born Fatima Rashid but known by her screen name, Nargis,^[1] was an Indian film actress. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest actresses in the history of Hindi cinema. She made her screen debut as a child in Talash-E-Haq in 1935, but her acting career began in 1942 with Tamanna. During a career that spanned from the 1940s to the 60s, Nargis appeared in numerous commercially successful as well as critically appreciated films, many of which featured her alongside actor and filmmaker Raj Kapoor.

One of her best-known roles was that of Radha in the Academy Award-nominated Mother India (1957), a performance that won her Best Actress trophy at the Filmfare Awards. In 1958, Nargis married her Mother India co-star, actor Sunil Dutt, and left the film industry. She would appear infrequently in films during the 60s. Some of her films of this period include the drama Raat Aur Din (1967), for which she got the inaugural National Film Award for Best Actress.

Along with her husband, Nargis formed the Ajanta Arts Cultural Troupe, which roped in several leading actors and singers of the time and held stage shows at border areas.^[2] In early 1970s, she became the first patron of Spastics Society of India,^[3] and her subsequent work with the organisation brought her recognition as a social worker, and later a Rajya Sabha nomination in 1980.^[4]

Nargis died in 1981 of pancreatic cancer, a few days before her son Sanjay Dutt made his film debut in Bollywood. In 1982, the Nargis Dutt Memorial Cancer Foundation was established in her memory.^[5] The award for best feature film on national integration in the annual National Film Awards ceremony is called the Nargis Dutt Award in her honour.^[6]

Early life and background[link]

Nargis was born in Calcutta. Her mother, the Allahabad-based Hindustani classical music singer and courtesan Jaddanbai.^[7] She introduced her into the movie culture unfolding in India at the time. Her father was one Uttamchand Mohanchand (popularly known as Mohanbabu), a wealthy doctor born in a Mohyal Brahmin family from Rawalpindi.^[8] Her only brother, Anwar Hussain, also became a film actor. Anwar Hussain was born to Jaddanbai and a different husband, and was raised in Muslim tradition like his mother.

Career[link]

Dev Anand and Nargis starred in Birha Ki Raat (1950)

Fatima was recruited to the cinema at an early age. She made her first film appearance in the 1935 Talashe Haq when she was six years old, credited as "Baby Nargis". Nargis, her stage name, means "Narcissus", the flower. She was subsequently credited as Nargis in all of her films.

Nargis appeared in numerous movies after her film debut; she won lasting fame for her later, adult, roles, starting with at the age of 14, in Mehboob Khan's Taqdeer in 1943 opposite, Motilal.^[4] She starred in many popular Hindi movies of the late 1940s and 1950s such as Barsaat (1949), Andaz (1949), Awaara (1951), Deedar (1951), Shree 420 (1955), and Chori Chori (1956). In most of her films she starred alongside Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar.

Her most famous role came in Mehboob Khan's Oscar-nominated rural drama Mother India in 1957. She won the Filmfare Best Actress Award for her performance. After her marriage to Sunil Dutt in 1958, Nargis gave up her film career after her last few film releases to settle down with her family. She made her last film appearance in the 1967 film Raat Aur Din for which she won a National Film Award for Best Actress, the first actress to win in this category. She also received a Filmfare Best Actress Award Nomination for this film.

In 2011, Rediff.com listed her as the greatest actress of all time, noting, "An actress with range, style, grace and an incredibly warm screen presence, Nargis is truly a leading lady to celebrate."^[9] According to M.L. Dhawan from The Tribune, "In almost all her films Nargis created a woman who could be desired and deified. The charisma of Nargis’s screen image lay in that it oscillated between the simple and the chic with equal ease."^[10]

Personal life[link]

Nargis married actor Sunil Dutt (himself a Mohyal from Jhelum, British India). Reportedly, Dutt had saved her life from a fire accident on the sets of Mother India.^[11] The couple married on 11 March 1958 and had three children together: Sanjay, Namrata, and Priya. Sanjay Dutt went on to become a very successful film actor. Namrata married actor Kumar Gaurav, son of veteran actor Rajendra Kumar who had appeared alongside both Nargis and Sunil Dutt in Mother India. Priya became a politician, and since 2005 has been a Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha).^[11]

Along with her husband, Nargis formed the Ajanta Arts Cultural Troupe, which roped in several leading actors and singers of the time, and performed at remote frontiers to entertain the Indian soldiers; it was the first troupe to perform at Dhaka, after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and the formation of Bangladesh.^[2] Later, Nargis worked for the cause of spastic children. She became the first patron of The Spastics Society of India. Her charitable work for the organisation got her recognition as a social worker.^[2]

Death[link]

Nargis was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and underwent treatment for the disease at Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in New York.^[11] Upon her return to India, her condition deteriorated, and she was admitted to Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai. She sank into a coma on 2 May 1981 and died on 3 May 1981.^[11] Her absence at the premiere of her son's debut film Rocky on 7 May 1981, where one seat was kept vacant for her, was a nationally famous event.^[11]

Nargis is buried at Badakabarastan in Marine Lines, Mumbai. A street in Bandra, Mumbai was renamed Nargis Dutt Road in her memory.

Awards and recognitions[link]

• 1957 - Filmfare Best Actress Award for Mother India
• 1958 - She was the first film actress to conferred by the Government of India with the Padma Shri title, the fourth highest civilian award.^[4]
• 1968 - National Film Award for Best Actress for Raat Aur Din.^[4]
• 1969 - Nominated, Filmfare Best Actress Award for Raat Aur Din
• She was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha (Upper house of Indian Parliament) (1980–81),^[1][12] but fell ill and died during her tenure.^[13]
• The National Film Awards honored Dutt by instituting the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration upon her achievement in Bollywood.^[14]
• On 8 January 2001, Nargis Dutt was honoured with the "Best Artists of the Millennium" award by Hero Honda and film magazine Stardust along with actor Amitabh Bachan.^[15]

Filmography[link]

Further reading[link]

• Mr. and Mrs. Dutt: Memories of our Parents, Namrata Dutt Kumar and Priya Dutt, 2007, Roli Books. ISBN 978-81-7436-455-5.^[16]
• Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt, Kishwar Desai. 2007, Harper Collins. ISBN 978-81-7223-697-7.
• The Life and Times of Nargis, T. J. S. George. 1994, Harper Collins. ISBN 978-81-7223-149-1.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Nargis at the Internet Movie Database
• Nargis Dutt Memorial Foundation