A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Alias:
Сурайя
Birthplace:
Lahore, Punjab, British India
Born:
June 15, 1929
Died:
January 31, 2004
Suraiya Jamal Sheikh (June 15, 1929 – January 31, 2004), known by her mononym Suraiya, was an Indian actress and playback singer who worked in Hindi and Urdu films from 1936 to 1964. Regarded among the finest and most accomplished actresses in the history of Indian cinema, as well as the first female star, she dominated the film industry between mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s. She was the highest paid film star at the time, being the first to be paid more than her male contemporaries. She was titled "Malika-e-Adakari" (Queen of Acting) and "Malika-e-Husn" (Queen of Beauty). Her status as the first superstar singer-actress of Indian films also earned her the title "Singing Star". Suraiya acted in over 70 films and sang hundreds songs, and even received praises from two Prime Ministers of India. Her enchanting screen presence and mesmerizing glamour has been compared to the likes of Hollywood icons Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Ava Gardner.
Playback Singer:
1942 Station Master
1945 Tadbir
1947 Naatak
1949 Balam
1949 Shair
1949 Singaar
1952 Moti Mahal
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.