Mumtaz Jahan Begum Dehlavi, known by her stage name Madhubala (Devanagari: मधुबाला) (14 February 1933 – 23 February 1969) was a Hindi movie actress. She starred in several successful movies in the 1950s and early 1960s, many of which have attained a classic status. With her contemporaries Nargis and Meena Kumari, she is widely regarded as one of the most influential and talented Hindi movie actresses.

Madhubala was born as Mumtaz Jahan Begum Dehlavi in New Delhi, India on 14 February 1933. She was the fifth child among eleven children of a conservative Muslim couple.

After Madhubala's father, Ataullah Khan, lost his job at the Imperial Tobacco Company in Peshawar, he relocated his family to Mumbai where they faced many hardships including the deaths of her two brothers at ages five and six. Young Mumtaz entered the movie industry at the age of nine in order to help provide for her family.

Mumtaz’s first movie Basant (1942) was a box-office success. She played in it as the daughter of the popular actress Mumtaz Shanti. She went on to act in several movies as a child artist. Actress Devika Rani was impressed by her performances and potential and advised her to assume the name Madhubala, meaning "a woman of honey". Madhubala soon garnered reputation as a reliable professional performer. By the time she entered adolescence, she was being groomed for lead roles.

Nimmi is a popular Indian screen actress who achieved stardom in the 1950s and early 1960s in Hindi films. She gained popularity playing spirited village belle type characters, but has appeared in diverse genres such as fantasy and social films.

Nawab Banoo was born in Agra, India. Her mother was a famous singer and actress by the name of Wahidan who was well connected within the film industry. Her father, Abdul Hakim, worked as a military contractor. As a young child, Nimmi had memories of visiting Bombay, and her mother being on good terms with Mehboob Khan and his family, who were prominent and influential within the movie making business.

When Nimmi was only nine years old, her mother died suddenly. She was sent to live in Abbottabad with her grandmother. Nimmi's father stayed on in Meerut where he worked. With the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, among the multitude of migrants and refugees were Nimmi and her grandmother. As Nimmi's aunt Jyoti ^{[disambiguation needed ]}, who was also once a leading film star had a home in Bombay, that is where she and her grandmother settled.

Dilip Kumar, born Muhammad Yusuf Khan on 11 December 1922, is an Indian actor and a former Member of Parliament. He is commonly known as "Tragedy King", and is described as "the ultimate method actor" by Satyajit Ray.

Starting his career with Jwar Bhata in 1944, Kumar's career has spanned five decades and over 60 films. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest actors in the history of Hindi cinema. Kumar was the first actor to receive a Filmfare Best Actor Award and holds the record for the most number of Filmfare Awards won for that category with Shahrukh Khan; eight wins. He starred in films of a variety of genres such as the romantic Andaz (1949), the swashbuckling Aan (1952), the dramatic Devdas (1955), the comical Azaad (1955), the historical Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and the social Ganga Jamuna (1961).

In 1976, Kumar took a five-year break from film performances. In 1981, he returned with a character role in the film Kranti and continued his career playing central character roles in films such as Shakti (1982), Karma (1986) and Saudagar (1991). His last film was Qila in 1998. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 1991 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994 for his contributions towards Indian cinema. Dilip Kumar has acted with actress Vyjayanthimala the most, where they both had acted seven films together including the former's home production Gunga Jumna resulting great on-screen chemistry and alleged affair between them.