Swaran Lata (actress)

Swaran Lata

Swaran Lata

Swaran Lata
Born (1924-12-20)December 20, 1924
Rawalpindi, British Punjab (British India)
Died February 8, 2008(2008-02-08) (aged 83) at age 83
Lahore, West Punjab (Pakistan)
Other names Saeeda Bano
Occupation Actress
Years active 1942–1971
Spouse(s) Nazir Ahmed

Swaran Lata (Urdu: سورن لتا‎, Punjabi: ਸਵਰਨ ਲਤਾ) was a Pakistani film actress. She started her career in the film industry in British India and later moved to Pakistan. She was described as a Tragedy Queen because of her emotional, tragic roles, her presence on the film screen and her moving dialogue delivery. She worked in Bollywood and in Pakistani cinema .

Early life

Swaran Lata was born into a Siyal Jatt Sikh family in Rawalpindi, British India,now in Pakistan on December 20, 1924.[1] She did her Senior Cambridge diploma from Delhi and then joined the Academy of Music and Arts, Lucknow. In the early 1940s, her family moved to Bombay.

Sawarn Lata later converted to Islam after she married Nazir Ahmed, a famous actor, director and producer at the time. She changed her name to Saeeda Bano - a Muslim name. The Swaran-Nazir pair was a very creative couple, churning out many movies together both before and after Partition of India in 1947.

Film Career

An exceptional and wondrous story about how she entered the realm of acting trails Swaran. Her parents died when she was very young and she lived most of her adolescent life with her elder brother, whom she recalls "very strict" on her. However, it is the story of how she got discovered that Swaran tells with great passion: "I was a student at a college in Lucknow, India. When I was traveling from Delhi to Lucknow, a few film directors happened to see me. They approached me to act in films but I was not interested at first. One of them then went to my elder brother with the offer, and to my utmost surprise he agreed".[2]

Swaran Lata started her career as a stage actress. Her first film was Awaaz released in 1942. Swaran and Nazir migrated to Pakistan at the time of the Partition of India in 1947. They left everything they had behind in Bombay and shifted to Lahore, Pakistan. The duo had to start from scratch and were considered among the pioneers of the early Pakistani film industry.

Swaran Lata was the lead actress of Pakistan's first ever silver jubilee film Pheray (1949). This film was a Punjabi film but she was comfortable as an Urdu language speaker who was educated in Lucknow, the home of Urdu littérateurs. For the film, she was coached in Punjabi language by Baba Alam Siahposh, a Punjabi poet, who was also one of the lyricists of the film songs.[3]

As a lead actress, Laarey (1950), Naukar (1955), Heer (1955) were her famous films, and as character actress, Sawaal (1966) was her famous film. From 1960 onwards, she cut back her film appearances and mainly shifted towards character roles.

In her lifetime, Swaran worked with great names like Prithviraj Kapoor and Motilal in India and with Santosh Kumar, Darpan, Inayat Hussain Bhatti and Habib in Pakistan.

Death

Swaran Lata died at the age of 83 in Lahore on February 8, 2008. She had four children, three daughters and a son.[4]

Filmography

See also

References

  1. ↑ https://secure.flickr.com/photos/pimu/2251215887/, Swaran Lata Biography, Retrieved 27 August 2015
  2. ↑ http://www.dawn.com/weekly/images/archive/060611/images11.htm
  3. ↑ , Daily Times Newspaper 9 Feb. 2008, Retrieved 27 August 2015
  4. ↑ http://www.dawn.com/weekly/images/archive/080217/images2.htm

External links

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