Book Review – Helen: The Life and Times of a Bollywood H-Bomb – BusinessLine

Someday within the 70s, Gumnaam, launched in 1965, was introduced again for every week or so on the Nationwide Stadium Cinema. Helen was the important thing member of the forged. Evidently she had a peppy quantity – Is Duniya Mein Jeena Hai Toh Solar Lo Meri Baat. It was not a cabaret quantity however featured Helen, in a brief skirt, frolicking with Pran on a seashore.

Struck by Helen’s magnificence, one among her followers discovered a singular means of celebrating her. He visited the theatre for every week simply to observe that exact quantity, which comes late within the film. He would time his entry, benefit from the tune, and go away instantly. The doormen knew this loopy fan. I knew him too.

Studying Jerry Pinto’s Helen, The Making of a Bollywood H-Bomb, I used to be reminded of one among Helen’s loyal followers.

Darling of viewers

Helen was the unchallenged vamp of the large display screen. She was the mistress of the adverse function, a darling of the viewers, luring the main man, and inflicting insecurity among the many most well-known modern heroines. They heaved an enormous sigh when Helen Richardson signed up for character roles. Such was her magical maintain over the younger and the not so younger, who watched some films solely as a result of Helen featured in them, generally in a quick look.

The guide by Jerry Pinto shouldn’t be truly a biography of the celebrated star. It’s, as Pinto writes, “Not a biography of Helen, besides the place the story of her display screen transformation, that transcending of the restrictions of age, gender and public reminiscence, implicates her life. It is not going to reply the query: what’s Helen actually like? I can’t reply the query about what Helen is absolutely like as a result of I’ve by no means met her. I sought to satisfy her however by no means received previous the family assist. I apologise however I gave up after a couple of hundred cellphone calls/”

However Pinto narrates a splendid Helen story – a narrative of the enduring contribution to Indian cinema that she made in a stupendous profession. Was Helen only a good dancer? She was far more than that. As Pinto says, “A dancer who when she retired from the display screen left a number of myths mendacity round, myths that slowly started to turn into the stuff of legend.”

Pinto brings us Helen the actor, and Helen the human. The courageous particular person who overcame extreme hardships to carve an enviable place within the historical past of Indian cinema. Born to a mom who was half-Spanish and half-Burmese and a father who was a Frenchman, Helen fled together with her household on foot from Burma in 1942. The “gruelling trek” introduced the household to Assam. Helen was a mere three years outdated then.

“Sad” childhood

Amassing info from completely different interviews that she gave, Pinto is ready to weave a compelling narrative. Helen’s early struggles to her success, from Calcutta to Bombay, the place she lived in a suburb in Bandra, in a room infested with cockroaches. Pinto highlights her “sad” childhood when she left faculty on the age of 12 to be taught dancing on the needs of her mom. The cane in her mom’s hand would pressure her to maintain her thoughts on dancing. She received featured fleetingly within the crowd throughout the dancing scenes in films regardless that her identify would seem in credit.

Helen, as Pinto rightly argues, was by no means a struggler. She acted as the feminine lead in not less than 15 movies. None of them had been hits however she saved signing movies, Cha Cha Cha in 1964 was her first hit as a heroine.

Within the 70s, she was “nonetheless taking part in heroine to Dara Singh however her picture of the main woman didn’t fairly enchantment to the viewers. They cherished the Helen who sizzled on the display screen making an attempt to seduce the hero even because the main woman watched helplessly.

The roles that received Helen the hearts of the filmgoers had been lots and Pinto analyses them intimately, arising with behind the scene anecdotes.

A skilled Manipuri and Kathak dancer, Helen confessed she was at “residence” doing cabaret. Pinto talks about her face. “My rivalry is that Helen’s face was nearly as necessary in her dancing as her physique. Take, for instance, that lovely tune of craving, Tumko Piya Dil Diya (Shikari, 1963), which she dances with Ragini, one of many Travancore sisters, famend for his or her classical coaching in dance. Ragini’s execution is ideal, her physique supple. However then you definitely watch the 2 of them, it’s Helen who holds you. Her face echoes the phrases. Helen’s face has the abandon of the born dancer.”

Are you able to overlook Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu from Howrah Bridge. Helen grew to become a rage with that dance in 1958. She was 18 and able to storm the world of Hindi cinema. From her early years to instances when she was thought-about an integral part for fulfillment of a movie, Helen by no means needed to adapt to any vulgarity to win hearts. There was respect for her work and followers would test on the forged of the film earlier than shopping for tickets.

Helen was the password to draw the movie lovers.

Helen: The bar dancer

The bar dance was her forte. Piya Tu Ab Toh Aa Jaa from Caravan is taken into account her finest look on the display screen however one would choose her duet with Shammi Kapoor in Teesri Manzil – O Haseena Zulfon Wali – as probably the most easy efficiency as she slides down the ramp in a most aesthetic show of athleticism, gliding from one body to a different, leaving you in a trance.

She options in probably the most sensuous songs, Aao Naa Gale Laga Lo Naa, from Mere Jeevan Sathi, with out as soon as utilizing a vulgar transfer. Pinto brings us these moments of Helen’s profession via some expert writing.

In 1965 got here Gumnaam, a thriller thriller that grew to become an enormous hit. Helen performed a bubbly character known as Kitty Kelly and noticed Lata Mangeshkar produce one among her lilting numbers for her – Is Duniya Mein Jeena Hai Tu Solar Lo Meri Baat. It was a tune that had audiences at theaters breaking right into a dance and generally women singing alongside. Such was the magic of Helen.

In fact, Helen in Talash (Kar Le Pyar Kar Le), Inkar (Mungda Mungda), The Prepare (Maine Dil Abhi Diya Nahi), Anamika (Aaj Ko Raat Koi Aane Ko Hai), Don (Yeh Mera Dil), Sholay (Mehbooba Mehbooba), has left a mark on her followers as probably the most sleek cabaret lady and a personality actor who gave sleepless nights to one of the best of main women.

The Lata Mangeshkar, who lent her voice to Helen in Ooi Maa Ooi Maa Yeh Kya Ho Gaya from the 1963 film Parasmani, additionally sang Aa Jaane Jaan from Inteqam in 1969, the one time she sang a cabaret quantity.

It was in all probability Lata’s means of acknowledging Helen’s large half in making dance a preferred phase of a film. Pinto pays wealthy tribute to probably the most revered stars of Indian cinema in a must-read guide, first printed by Penguin Books India in 2006 and now up to date and reprinted by Talking Tiger Books in 2023.

Vijay Lokapally is a senior journalist and creator

In regards to the Ebook

Title: Helen : The Making of a Bollywood H-Bomb

Writer: Jerry Pinto

Writer: Talking Tiger

Pages: 272

Value: ₹398 (paperback)

Try the guide on Amazon right here

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