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Noor Jehan

Singer and actress, Malika-e-Tarannum (1926-2000)

Noor Jehan was born Allah Wasai in Kasur, in Punjab, and sang on stage as a child before the camera ever found her. Khandaan (1942) made her a star, and Anmol Ghadi four years later gave her the largest part of a score that has outlasted the film: she sings five of its twelve songs, including Awaaz De Kahan Hai with Surendra and Jawan Hai Mohabbat, which are the two people still hum. She was at that moment one of the last performers who both acted and sang her own songs - within a few years playback would separate the two trades for good. In 1947 she left for Pakistan with her husband, the director Shaukat Hussain Rizvi, and in 1951 directed Chan Wey herself, the first Pakistani film directed by a woman. She stopped acting after Mirza Ghalib (1961) and went on singing for thirty more years, in Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi, as Malika-e-Tarannum - the queen of melody.