Suraiya

Suraiya Jamaal Sheikh (15 June 1929 – 31 January 2004), popularly known by the mononym Suraiya, was a popular Indian Hindi/Hindustani film actress and playback singer in Bollywood.She was active from 1936 to 1963. In a career spanning from 1936 to 1963, Suraiya acted in 67 films and sang 338 songs.She was one of the greatest actresses of the Hindi Cinema and a leading lady in Bollywood in 1940s and 1950s.She was also a renowned playback singer, who mostly sang for her own films in Bollywood, starting from a song in Nai Duniya (1942) when she was only 12 years old. She was known for her North Indian Muslim feudal style acting or adakari in many of her filmsSuraiya made her first appearance as a child artist with the film Madame Fashion (1936), directed by Jaddan Bai.She made her acting debut with the film Taj Mahal (1941 film) in which she played the role of Mumtaz Mahal.In her heydays, she was known as Malika-e-Husn (queen of beauty), Malika-e-Tarannum (queen of melody) and Malika-e-Adakaari (queen of acting). A Muslim, Suraiya had a relationship with Hindu actor Dev Anand and her romance with him attracted much attention.However, she never married him as her maternal grandmother did not allow her to marry a Hindu.Therefore, Suraiya never married for the rest of her life and died of heart disease and insulonima in 2004.