FEARLESS NADIA ,
BOLLYWOOD BOX OFFICE HITTER
BORN JANUARY 8, 1908 - JANUARY 9, 1996
Why Google honours
'Fearless Nadia' today
Described as "fearless" and hailed as the "original Bollywood stuntwoman" of the 1930s, actress Mary Ann Evans would have been 110 today.
In her honour, Google is changing its logo in India to a doodle, or illustration, of her and action movie posters of old-time Hindi cinema. This is her story:
Circus stuntwoman
Born in 1908 in Perth, Australia, Marry Ann Evans moved to India with her family, where she later become a star of the Bollywood cinema.
After learning stunts as a circus performer in Peshawar, Evans joined a touring dance troupe in Bombay, and then made it to the Zarco Circus that led her to perform in movies.
Evans changed her name to Nadia on the advice of an Armenian fortune teller, and soon after found her winning formula: Fearless Nadia, the action heroine.
Her first lead role in a movie was in the film Hunterwali, in 1935. Fearless Nadia blasted onto the screen performing all of her own stunts.
Over the years, Nadia performed in over 38 films, swinging from chandeliers, leaping from speeding trains, and even taming lions.
Feminist actress
Throughout her career, Nadia stood out as a talented actress who often portrayed a woman fighting injustice, a theme that was popular among the audience during the last leg of the British rule.
Dorothee Wenner, author of the book Fearless Nadia: The True Story of Bollywood's Original Stunt Queen, refers to her as a "radical feminist actress".
She explains that her popularity reached places like Greece, Italy and France, and in that way she became India's first crossover actress.
In late 1960's, she also appeared in a James Bond spoof called Khiladi (The Players).
In 1993, Riyad Vinci Wadia, Nadia's great-grandnephew, made a documentary film on her life and career, called Fearless: The Hunterwali Story.
Mary Ann Evans, also known by her stage name Fearless Nadia (8 January 1908 – 9 January 1996) was an actress and stuntwoman, who is most remembered as the masked, cloaked adventurer in Hunterwali (a woman who holds a hunter whip and also uses it without any fear) released in 1935,[1][2][3] which was one of the earliest female-lead Indian films.[
Biography[edit source]
Early life[edit source]
Fearless Nadia was born as Mary Ann Evans on 8 January 1908 in Perth, Western Australia. She was the daughter of Scotsman Herbertt Evans, a volunteer in the British Army, and Margret. They lived in Australia, before coming to India. Mary was one year old when Herbertt's regiment was seconded to Bombay. Mary came to Bombay in 1913 at the age of five with her father.
In 1915, her father’s untimely death at the hands of Germans during World War I prompted the family’s move to Peshawar (now in Pakistan).[5] She learned horseback riding, hunting, fishing, and shooting during a stay in the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). In 1928, she returned to Mumbai with her mother and a son, Robert Jones, about whom not much is known, and then studied ballet under Madam Astrova.[1]
She had earlier tried her hand at a job in the Army & Navy Store in Bombay (Mumbai) as a salesgirl and had at one point wanted to learn "short-hand and typing to get a better job". Astrova’s troupe performed for British soldiers at military bases, for Indian royalty, and for other crowd in small towns and villages. She mastered the art of cartwheels and splits, which came in handy later during her film stunts. An Armenian fortune teller had foretold that a successful career lay ahead but she would have to choose a name starting with the letter ‘N’. She chose the name Nadia because it was "exotic-sounding".[5]
Career of Tapasree[edit source]
Poster of Hunterwali (1935) featuring Fearless Nadia.
She toured India as a theatre artist and began working for Zarko Circus in 1930. She was introduced to Hindi films by Jamshed "J.B.H." Wadia who was the founder of Wadia Movietone, the behemoth of stunts and action in 1930s Bombay. At first, J.B.H. was bemused at Mary's insistence on trying out for the movies, but he took a gamble by giving her a cameo as a slave girl (in a hand-painted colour sequence that accentuated her blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes) in the film Desh Deepak, and then as Princess Parizaad in Noor-e-Yaman. Nadia proved a huge hit with the audience, whereupon, considering her skills at performing circus and other stunts, J.B.H., by then joined by his younger brother Homi, chose to develop her into a star.[5] In 1967-68, when she was in her late 50s, she appeared in a James Bond spoof called Khiladi (The Player).[6]
Legacy[edit source]
In 1993, Nadia's great grandnephew, Riyad Vinci Wadia, made a documentary of her life and films, called Fearless: The Hunterwali Story. After watching the documentary at the 1993 Berlin International Film Festival, Dorothee Wenner, a German freelance writer, and film curator, wrote Fearless Nadia - The true story of Bollywood's original stunt queen, which was subsequently translated into English in 2005.[7] In Vishal Bharadwaj's hindi film Rangoon, the role played by Kangana Ranaut was inspired by Nadia.[8]
Google Doodle[edit source]
On 8 January 2018, Google Doodle paid tribute in India to Fearless Nadia’s 110th Birthday.[9][10]
Personal life[edit source]
Nadia married Homi Wadia in 1961 and thus became Nadia Wadia.[11][12]
Death[edit source]
Nadia died on 9 January 1996, a day after her 88th birthday, due to age-related diseases.
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