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Leela Chitnis

1909–2003

Leela Chitnis was a graduate and a stage actress at a time when film actresses were neither, played leads opposite Ashok Kumar in the 1930s and 1940s, and then invented the Hindi film mother - the coughing, sacrificing, white-sari figure that every later film either used or argued with.

Kangan, Jhoola, Awaara, Shaheed, Guide, Waqt. She was the first Indian actress to appear in an advertisement, for Lux. She moved to the United States late in life and died there.

Dates and credits from Wikidata.