Madhubala’s real name was Mumtaz Jahan Begum Dehlavi. And I think her face is more beautiful than the word beautiful.
She entered the industry at the age of 9. Her 1st movie Basant was a box office hit. She played the role of a daughter & people were quite impressed by her performance. She got her 1st break as an actress in Neel Kamal. She was just 14.
She maintained a very low profile. She had an affair with Dilip Kumar which lasted for 5 years. When she met Kishore Kumar, he was already married but later on they had a civil marriage as she was a Muslim & he was a Hindu. She was never really accepted in his family.
She had severe health problems. This a bit of info I read about her on the net:
“Madhubala was found to have a heart problem after she coughed up blood in 1950. She was discovered to have been born with a ventricular septal defect, commonly known as a "hole in the heart". At the time, heart surgery was not widely available.
Madhubala hid her illness from the movie industry for many years, but one incident was widely reported by the media in 1954: She was filming in Madras for S.S. Vassan's Bahut Din Huwe when she vomited blood on the set. Vassan and his wife took care of her until she was well again. She continued to work and established herself as an A-grade star.
Madhubala's family was extremely protective of her because of her health problem. When filming at the studios, she would eat only home-prepared food and drink water only from a specific well in order to minimize risks of infection. But her condition took its toll and she died in 1969 at age 36. For most of the 1950s, Madhubala performed successfully despite her illness.
It was the film Mughal-e-Azam that marked what many consider to be her greatest and definitive characterization as the doomed courtesan Anarkali.
On 5 August 1960, Mughal-e-Azam released and became the biggest grossing film at that time, a record that went unbroken for 15 years until the release of the film Sholay in 1975. It still ranks second in the list of all time box-office hits of Indian cinema (inflation adjusted).”
I also don’t think anyone else could have done justice to the role of Anarkali. She was definitely the right choice. Each & everyone in Mughal-e-Azam did a terrific job. It took them 10 years to make this movie. Although I’m an ardent fan of Dilip Kumar but I just didn’t like him in Mughal-e-Azam. Maybe the character of Saleem was so. Pritivi Raj Kapoor seemed even better than the real Akbar. And Akbar is my only favourite Mughal Emperor, cause he didn’t discriminate & he had no issues with different religions. He was a charming person. I think Sher Shah Suri is the one who did a lot of work & I don’t like Aurangzeb for obvious reason.
It's not that I like to say mean & nasty about the current actresses...When I see a really beautiful woman, I would certainly call her beautiful & Madubala is one such lady. She was nothing short of a goddess.
