Today is the death anniversary of Meena Kumari, popularly known as the Tragedy Queen. At the age of 39, he said goodbye to the world. Meena Kumari started working in films as a child artist. After this he also did supporting roles in films. Till then he needed a hit film. The film ‘Baiju Bawra’ changed the fate of Meera Kumari in which she was in the lead role. After this, the path became easy for him in the English cinema world. He has done around 90 films in his career. Meena Kumari’s main films are ‘Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam’, ‘Parineeta’, ‘Sharda’, ‘Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai’, ‘Dil Ek Mandir’ and ‘Pakija’ among others. Today, on the death anniversary of Meena Kumari, we tell some interesting facts related to her.
10 things about Meena Kumari
1.When Meena Kumar was born, her father wanted to have a son. When she was born, her father left her in an orphanage. However, after a few hours, he changed his mind and brought him back. Meena Kumari started working in films from the age of 4. His first film was Vijay Bhatt’s Leatherface.
2.Meena Kumari’s real name was Mehjabeen Bano. Baby Meena was known as a child artist in films.
3.Meena Kumar was related with the famous poet Rabindranath Tagore. His name was Hem Sundari Tagore and the cousin of Rabindranath Tagore. However, there is no exact information about what their relationship was.
4.Meena Kumari had worked with Bimal Roy in the film ‘Parineeta’ after which she was the first choice as Paro in ‘Devdas’ but her deal for the film failed. At that time Meena Kumari was interested in Kamal Amrohi’s films.
5.There have been such hit couples in the English cinema world who worked together in many films. Meena Kumari and Ashok Kumar did 15 films together.
6.Meena Kumari fell very ill during the shooting of ‘Mere Apne’. The song ‘Roz Akeli Aaye’ was sung by Lata Mangeshkar and written by Gulzar. The song was to be shot on Meena Kumari which did not happen. Actually this was his last film which he shot.
7.Many would be surprised to know that Meena Kumari never needed glycerin to make her cry on camera.
8.Meena Kumari secretly married producer-director Kamal Amrohi in 1952. His father was not ready for this marriage as Kamal was already married and had 3 children.
9.The separation from Kamal Amrohi was a shock for Meena Kumari. Because of this, he got addicted to alcohol. He could not sleep and had to take sleeping pills.
10.Due to excessive drinking, his liver was affected and he got a disease called liver cirrhosis. She also went to London and Switzerland for treatment. Meena Kumar returned to the country after recovering a bit, but now she had become much weaker than before. She fell into a coma two days before her death and died on 31 March 1971.