Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Pramila: Esther Victoria Abraham- The First woman to be crowned Miss India

“My husband asked me to choose between him and the theatre. And I chose the latter. After that he never came to the theatre. Never saw me either. That was it. I was pregnant then. There was no other meeting, no other conversation … that was the end of my family life …”


Esther was born in 1916 in Kolkata to Reuben Abraham, a businessman from Kolkata and Matilda Issac from Karachi. Her family was of the Baghdadi Jewish origins, that traces its routes to the Middle east and who settled primarily around the trade route ports around Indian ocean and the South Chinese sea.
She had three half siblings and six siblings from her parent’s own marriage.



Education and early life
Esther attended the Calcutta Girls high school but later shifted to St James which was a co-educational institution and had a reasonable fee structure which the family could afford due to its declining means. Esther learned that to be an all-rounder she had to to excel in both studies and sports and become better than the boys.
She was a hockey champion and had won many trophies in sports.
She had a penchant for drawing and on graduating from high school received an arts degree from Cambridge.
On completing her high school degree she went to become a kindergarten teacher at the Talmud Torah Boy’s school. Esther was pretty and the boys in her school would try and find all kinds of excuses to speak to their beautiful teacher. Despite having done a B Ed degree she didn’t want to teach and was drawn to the Hindi cinema.

From Esther to Pramila
Her family had keen interest in music and dance which attracted young Esther to cinema. Her entry into silent movies happened by a sheer stroke of luck.
In those days her first cousin Rose and her younger sister Sophie were a part of the Corinthian theatre.
Meanwhile she got married to a Marwari theatre personality and had a son Maurice Abraham. Her parents convinced her to annul the marriage and they brought up Maurice.
A chance visit to Bombay to visit her cousin Rose Ezra changed the course of her life. Director R S Chowdhari spotted her while she visited Rose who was acting in The Return of the Toofan Mail. The director thought that the tall and glamorous Esther would do greater justice to the role and she was signed after being put through a screen test.
The movie The Return of the Toofan Mail was never completed but this marked the beginning of Esther’s entry into Hindi cinema.
She stayed on in Bombay and started working with Irani’s Imperial company. In 1936, her first movie Bhikaran hit the theaters and her anglicized hindi was accepted and became a rage. After this movie she was given the screen name Pramila by director and producer Baburao Pendherkar.
She went on to act in movies like Ulti Ganga,Burra Nawab Sahib, Bijli,Shahzadi, Jhankar, Our Darling Daughter, Maha Maya among others that often saw her play a vamp and stunt star. She also became the first major woman film producer with 16 major films under her banner Silver Productions. Morarji Desai, the then Prime minister got her arrested for she was suspected to be a spy for as she often travelled to Pakistan. Later it was proved that her constant travels were aimed at promoting her films.



Filmography
  • Return of the Toofan Mail, directed by R.S. Chaudhary (1935)
  • Bhikaran, directed by P.K. Atharti (1935)
  • Mahamaya, directed by Gunjal (1936)
  • Hamari Betiya / Our Darling Daughters, directed by R.S. Chaudhary (1936)
  • Saria, directed by Shanti Dave (1936)
  • Mere Lai, directed by Gunjal (1937)
  • Mother India, directed by Gunjal (1938)
  • Bijlee, directed by Balwant Bhatt (1939)
  • Hukum Ka Ekka, directed by Shanti Dave (1939)
  • Jungle King, directed by Nari Ghadialli (1939)
  • Kahan Hai Manzil Ten, directed by S.M. Yussuf (1939)
  • Sardar, directed by Dwarka Khosla (1940)
  • Kanchan, directed by Leela Chitnis (1941)
  • Shahzaadi, directed by J.P. Advani (1941)
  • Basant, directed by Amiya Chakrabarty (1942)
  • Jhankar, directed by S. Khalil (1942)
  • Saheli, directed by S.M. Yussuf (1942)
  • Ulti Ganga, directed by K. Dhaiber (1942)
  • Bade Nawab Saheb, directed by B.D. Vedi (1944)
  • Naseeb, directed by B.D. Vedi (1945)
  • Devar, directed by S.M. Yussuf (1946)
  • Nehle Pe Dehla, directed by S.M. Yussuf (1946)
  • Sal Gira, directed by K.S. Dariani (1946)
  • Shalimar, directed by Roop K. Shorey (1946)
  • Doosri Shaadi, directed by Ram Dariani (1947)
  • Aap Beeti, directed by M. Kumar (1948)
  • Beqasoor, directed by K. Amamath (1950)
  • Hamari Beti, directed by Shobhna Samarth (1950)
  • Dhoon, directed by M. Kumar (1953)
  • Majboori / Choti Bahen, directed by Ram Dariani (1954)
  • Badal Aur Bijlee, directed by Maurice Abraham (1956)
  • Fighting Queen, directed by Nari Ghadiali (1956)
  • Jungle King, directed by Masud (1959)
  • Bahana, directed by M. Kumar (1960)
  • Murad, directed by Nari Ghadiali (1961)
  • Thaang, directed by Amol Palekar (2006)

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