Noor Jahan

Noor Jehan was born on 21st September 1926 in Lahore. She was a famous Punjabi and Urdu singer and actress. There are around 10,000 songs in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi on her credit. Noor Jehan sang 127 songs in Indian films and the number of talking films she made from 1932 to 1947 was 69. The number of silent films was 12. Fifty-five of her films were made in Bombay, eight in Calcutta, five in Lahore and one in Rangoon, Burma & Noor Jehan made 14 films in Pakistan, ten in Urdu, four in Punjabi.

Her family used to perform in stages occasionally. Noor Jehan  has thirteen sisters and brothers and she was the youngest child, in all. She was very interested in singing and dancing due to this reason her mother arrange music lessons under Kajjanbai, a very famous singer of his times who made her do "riyaz" .She received early training in classical singing by Ustad Ghulam Mohammed.

In 1930, Noor Jehan won a part in a silent feature for 11 films and her first talkie film was SASSI PUNNU, released in 1932, her first film as a heroine WAS KHANDAAN (1942) SHE THAN SUNG SHANTA APTE IN DUHAI (1943), NAUKAR (1943), NADAN (1943), DOST (1944) & LAL HAVELI (1944). In 1946, she acted in ANMOL GHADI (1946),DIL (1946), HUMJOLI (1946), SOFIA (1946), JUGNU (1947), Noor Jehan's last film in India was MIRZA SAHIBAAN (1947).

Three years after creation of Pakistan, she acted in her first film in Pakistan, Chanwey (1951), and gave many hits like DOPATTA (1952), GULNAR (1953), PATEY KHAN (1955) LAKHT-E-JIGAR (1956), INTEZAR (1956), NOORAN (1957), CHOOMANTAR (1958), ANARKALI (1958), KOEL (1959), PARDAISAN (1959), NEEND (1959), MIRZA GHALIB (1961), AND BAAJI (1963) and than in 1963 she gave up acting but continued with singing and she recorded her last song in Pakistan for the film Sakhi Badshah (1996) and stopped singing due to failing health. On December 23, 2000, Noor Jehan died from heart failure.