Devika Rani
First Lady of Indian cinema, pioneering actress and first Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipient.
Devika Rani was an Indian actress who worked in Hindi cinema and is widely acknowledged as the First Lady of Indian cinema.[1] The Dadasaheb Phalke Award was first given to Devika Rani, and she also received the Padma Shri honor.[1] Box Office India's "Top Actresses" ranking for 1940 and 1941 both included Devika Rani.[2]
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Devika Rani Chaudhuri
- Born
- 30 March 1908
- Birthplace
- Vizagapatam, Madras Presidency, British India
- Died
- 9 March 1994
- Place of death
- Bangalore, Karnataka, India
- Other names
- Devika Rani Roerich
- Education
- Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; Royal Academy of Music
- Occupation
- Actress
- textile designer
- fashion designer
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Devika Rani was born on 30 March 1908 in Waltair.[3] Her father, Colonel Manmatha Nath Chaudhuri, was the first Indian Surgeon-General of Madras Presidency.[4] She was sent to boarding school in England at age nine and later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Royal Academy of Music.[5] She married Himanshu Rai in 1929.[6]
Her acting debut was in the 1933 film Karma, which featured a kissing scene lasting about four minutes.[7][8] She made her last film appearance in Hamari Baat (1943) and later married Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich in 1945.[9][10] During 1928 in London, Devika Rani encountered Himanshu Rai and helped with costume design and art direction for his movie A Throw of Dice.[11][3] After Rai passed away in 1940, Devika Rani took on the main leadership duties for the studio.[9]
Bronchitis caused Devika Rani's death on 9 March 1994 in Bangalore.[3][12]
What the cited sources add
An obituary in The Independent notes that Devika Rani wore full make-up every single day of her 50 years in retirement in case someone called on her.[3] The same source states that her greatest achievement was selling cinema as an art form to puritanical upper-crust Indians.[3] The Independent also reports that her film career began more by accident than design after a fortuitous meeting with Himanshu Rai in 1928.[3] A Guardian article confirms that the kissing scene in Karma was an almost four-minute epic between Devika Rani and her real-life husband.[8]
The Independent obituary adds that she scaled great heights as an actress and that Basant and Punar Milan had unprecedented 50-week runs at the box office.[3]
References
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Top heroines of Bollywood", India Today (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Top Actresses", Box Office India (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Varma, "Obituary: Devika Rani", The Independent, 26 March 1994. facts only, no text reused. independent.co.uk
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "B-town women who dared!", Hindustan Times; Erik 1980, p. 93; "Devika Rani", Press Information Bureau, p. 1 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rogowski 2010, p. 168; Erik 1980, p. 93; "Devika Rani Roerich", Roerich & DevikaRani Roerich Estate Board, Government of Karnataka (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Varma, "Obituary: Devika Rani", The Independent, 26 March 1994; Himanshu Rai — The boss of Bombay Talkies and his two wives (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Karma 1933", The Hindu, 10 January 2009; Jaikumar 2006, p. 229; Barrass, "In bed with Bollywood: sex and censorship in Indian cinema", The Guardian, 14 April 2014; Dasgupta, "India's longest kissing scene clips in Paoli film", The Times of India, 30 April 2012 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Barrass, "In bed with Bollywood: sex and censorship in Indian cinema", The Guardian, 14 April 2014. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Patel 2012, p. 19 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Patel 2012, p. 19; Varma, "Obituary: Devika Rani", The Independent, 26 March 1994; Kharegat, "The Sad Saga of Roerich Treasures", The Navhind Times, 20 August 2011 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Devika Rani Roerich", Roerich & DevikaRani Roerich Estate Board, Government of Karnataka; Ghosh 1995, p. 28–29; Varma, "Obituary: Devika Rani", The Independent, 26 March 1994; Gulzar Nihalani Chatterjee 2003, p. 545; Varma, "Obituary: Devika Rani", The Independent, 26 March 1994; Varma, "Obituary: Devika Rani", The Independent, 26 March 1994; "Devika Rani Roerich", Roerich & DevikaRani Roerich Estate Board, Government of Karnataka (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Devika Rani" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Rediff Special/M D Riti", 4 October 2002; "Devika Rani Roerich", Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 11 March 1994; Kaur 2013, p. 12 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Devika Rani (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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