Shamim Bano

Shamim Bano (also commonly termed 'Shamim', or more formally 'Shamim Bano Begum') (1914-1984), an early film actress of Indian and Pakistani cinema,^[1] who starred alongside Dilip Kumar in his debut film Jwar Bhata (1944 film).^{[note 1]} She was the second wife of famed Pakistani film director and producer Anwar Kamal Pasha, and thus daughter-in-law of poet, writer and scholar Hakim Ahmad Shuja.

Origins

Shamim Bano, or Shamim Bano Begum, was born in 1914 to a Pashtun-origin Lodi family of farmers and small landowners, settled in the Punjab region^[2] who had sold most of their patrimony and shifted to Lahore and later Bombay (now Mumbai), soon after the end of the First World War.

Career

Shamim was a moderately successful Indian heroine of the 1940s. She was related to legendary actress/singer Khursheed Bano Begum as well as Meena Kumari. Today, she is mostly remembered as being the co-star of Dilip Kumar in his first film Jwar Bhata (1944).

She started her career in the late 1930s probably with Vishnu Cine’s Baghi (1939). Ranjit Movietone’s Armaan (1942) was one of the most popular films of her career. Another milestone of her career was Kishore Sahu’s Sindoor (1947), which became quite controversial during its release because it dealt with the topic of Hindu widow remarriage. Mehmaan, Sanyasi and Pehle Aap were other notable films of her career.

After partition in 1947 she migrated to Pakistan and appeared in few Pakistani films including Shahida (1949) where she was paired with Dilip Kumar’s younger brother Nasir Khan and, Do Ansoo (1949–50) which became the first hit Urdu film of Pakistan.

She later married the producer/director of Do Ansoo, Anwar Kamal Pasha, who was younger to her, and bid adieu to her film career to settle for marital bliss. She died at her home in Lahore in 1984.

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