Born as Fatima Rashid, Nargis definitely was one of the talented stars of Bollywood. Her name is taken from the name of a flower, Narcissus. She started acting when she was a child with the movie Talash-E-Haq but she became a full time actress with Tamanna in 1942.
She was brought into the world of cinema by her mother Jaddanbai, who was a courtesan and a classical singer, to avoid her from becoming a courtesan too.
She acted along side Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor in a lot of films which were successful commercially. A few of those films are Deedar, Barsaat, Awaara and Andaz. Mother India is her best film in her career, which span through the '40s to '60s. For this movie, she got the best actress award in Filmfare awards. She portrayed the role of Radha which was believed as one of her best roles ever. It is heard that her co-actor Sunil Dutt, who later got married to her, rescued her from a fire mishap during the shooting of this movie.
Soon after getting married, Nargis quit films. Namratha, Priya Dutt and Sanjay Dutt were their kids.
Nargis received the prestigious Urvashy Award which is the highest honor given to a film in Bollywood. She has also received the National Award, Padma Shri and Karlovy Award. It happened for the first time that an actress of Bollywood received the esteemed Padma Shri.
Apart from winning several awards, Nargis formed the Ajanta Arts Cultural Troupe, along with her husband.
This troupe is the first among others to reach Dhaka after Pakistan and India war. She saw her name being nominated to Rajya Sabha also. However, Nargis could not complete her tenure as she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and succumbed to it.
Apart from being an actress, Nargis also spend most of her time to engage in social work. She was the first patron of The Spastics Society of India, where she put effort to help spastic kids. She remained fresh in the minds of her family members as her chair was kept vacant while the first screening of Rocky, Sanjay Dutt's debut film. The Nargis Dutt Memorial Cancer Foundation was founded in her loving memory.
Nargis - A Spirited Star