Helen (actress)

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Helen
Helen

Helen Richardson Khan (born October 21, 1939) was a Bollywood dancer and actress of Anglo-Burmese extraction, best known for playing vamps and vixens in Bollywood movies of the 1960s and 70s. She was famous for her performances in flamboyant dance sequences and cabaret numbers. The Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle frequently sang for Helen.

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[edit] Career

Helen was born on October 21, 1939 in Burma to an Anglo-Burmese/Anglo-Indian father and Burmese mother. A family friend, an actress known as Cukoo, helped her find jobs as a chorus dancer in the films Shabistan and Awaara (1951). Helen was soon working regularly, and was featured as a solo dancer in films like Alif Laila (1952) and Hoor-e-Arab (1953).

In 1958, she had her first major hit with her performance in the song "Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu" in O.P. Nayyar's hit film, Howrah Bridge. She was in great demand after this, performing as a cabaret dancer and vamp in film after film. She was known as the Cabaret Queen. She was never a great success in the few films in which she played the heroine, but vamp roles and "item numbers" kept her busy through the 1960s. Her luck took a turn for the worse in the 1970s. Younger actresses were taking the vamp roles. Also, changing rules for Bollywood heroines made it possible for sexy young things in go-go boots to do the cabaret numbers and play the heroine. Helen fell into financial difficulties.

Writer Salim Khan came to her rescue. He helped her get good roles in some of the movies he was co-scripting with Javed Akhtar: Imaam Dharam, Don, and Dostana. This led to a demanding role in Mahesh Bhatt's film Lahu Ke Do Rang (1979), for which she won a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress award. Soon afterwards, she married Salim Khan, as his second wife. The arrangement was said to have been tense at first, but Salim's children by his first wife are now said to be on good terms with their stepmother.

Helen retired from the screen for a number of years, but made a few "guest star" appearances in 1999 and 2000. In Mohabbatein, she plays the prim and proper head of a girls' school, who is pulled out onto a dance floor and surprises everyone with her lively dancing.

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] Trivia

  • Helen is the stepmother of Bollywood actor Salman Khan.
  • Helen seemed to show a lot of skin in her cabaret routines.
  • The 1999 documentary film, Desperately Seeking Helen by Eisha Marjara is an autobiographical tale of an immigrant experience in Canada. "Helen" is a reference to the dancer Helen and by extension, India's dream factory, Bollywood.

[edit] Quotes

  • I could never walk on the streets. I had to wear a veil. They used to go berserk when they saw me.

[edit] Reference

  • Jerry Pinto -- Helen; The Life and Times of an H Bomb, Penguin India, 2006

[edit] External links

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