Rehana (actress)

Rehana
ریحانہ
Rehana in 1951 film Adaa
Born	Rehana Anjuman Choudhary[1] (1931-03-10)10 March 1931 Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India
Died	23 April 2013(2013-04-23) (aged 82) Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Other names	The Queen of Charm[2] The Dancing Damsel of Bombay[3]
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1936 – 1995
Spouses	Sabir Ahmed Iqbal Shehzad (divorced)
Children	3

Rehana Anjuman Choudhary (10 March 1931 – 23 April 2013), known mononymously as Rehana, was a film actress who predominantly worked in Indian and Pakistani cinema. She was known as both "The Queen of Charm" and "The Dancing Damsel of Bombay".^[3][2] She worked in leading roles in films such as Sagai, Tadbir, Hum Ek Hain, Shehnai, Sajan, Samrat and Sargam.^[4][5]

Rehana was born as Rehana Anjuman Choudhary in Bombay, British India.^[1] Rehana's father was a manufacturer of Moradabadi silverware and he owned a factory in Lucknow. Rehana liked arts and she started learning classical dance when she was a child later she did a dance on a stage and was noticed by Shambhu Maharaj.^[1]

At age five she was trained in Kathak dance by Shambhu Maharaj and he was friends with Kajjanbai's so he introduced Rehana to her later he would take Rehana with him to Kajjanbai's touring company at Lucknow where he trained Rehana for rehearsals.^[1] Later Rehana did a classical dance at Kajjanbai's house at a request of a friend it made Kajjanbai impressed so she immediately took Rehana to her company and trained her in acting.^[1]

Then she became a member of her troupe and would travel to different countries for performance and musical stage plays. Later when she returned to India then she signed a contract with Entertainments National Service Association which was opened by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson and she made her debut in film Tadbir.^[1]

After doing dancing roles and small roles in films like the K. L. Saigal-Suraiya-starrer Tadbir, she got her major break in Hum Ek Hain (1946), which was incidentally Dev Anand's first film. Sajan (1947) had Rehana in the female lead, and following the success of this film, as well as Shehnai (1947), she became an "overnight star".^[4][6] From 1948 to 1951 was the best phase of her career as she did a variety of films paired opposite most of the top heroes of that time, like Prem Adib in Actress (1948), with Raj Kapoor in Sunehre Din (1949) and Sargam (1950), with Dev Anand in Dilruba (1950), with Shyam in Nirdosh (1950) and Surajmukhi (1950), with Shekhar in Adaa (1951) and with Premnath in Sagai (1951).^[7][8] Two of her biggest hits from these were Sargam (1950) and Sagai (1951).^[3][9][10]

After 1952, her career sharply went on the decline as films like Rangeeli (1952), Chham Chhama Chham (1952), Hazar Raatein (1953) and Samrat (1954) all sank at the box office. With her career on the decline in India, Rehana migrated to Pakistan with the hope of continuing her career there.^[4]

In Pakistan, she worked in Urdu films like Raat ke Rahi, Wehshi, Apna Praya, Shalimar, Aulad and Dil Ne Tujhe Man Liya.^[4] She successfully work in many films which revived her acting career and performed a number of character roles in films such Insan Badalta Hai, Shabab, Unchay Mahal, Miss 56 and Heer Ranjha.^[1] In 1995 she was a judge for the Nigar Awards.^[11]

Rehana married producer Iqbal Shehzad who she worked with in the film Raat Ke Rahi but later they divorced and then she married Sabir Ahmed, a businessman from Karachi. With him she had three children.^[4]

She died in Karachi on 23 April 2013.^[1]

She is regarded as Hindi cinema's first "Jhatka Queen".^[12] Her movie Shin Sinaki Boobla Boo (1952) became the first film to be banned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting because of its low moral tone, even when it was certified for unrestricted public viewing by the censor board of India. Immense public support for the actress made the information and broadcasting ministry of the central government bow down and allow the unrestricted release of the film, but the huge delay reduced its success at the box office.^[4]

In 2010, Rehana's family filed a case against film producer Ekta Kapoor and director Milan Luthria, at the Allahabad High Court and the legal notice says that the filmmaker has used the name 'Rehana' without their consent in the film Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai and it has maligned her image.^[12]

• Rehana at IMDb