Devika Rani

Devika Rani Chaudhuri ( Bengali pronunciation: [debika raɳi]; 30 March 1908 – 9 March 1994), known professionally as Devika Rani (Bengali: দেবিকা রাণী), was an Indian actress who worked in Hindi cinema. Widely acknowledged as the First Lady of Indian cinema, Devika Rani is regarded as one of the greatest actresses. She was the first recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award and was awarded the Padma Shri. One of the highest-paid actress of the 1930s and early 1940s, she appeared in Box Office India's "Top Actresses" list in 1940 and 1941.

Born into a wealthy, anglicized Indian family, Devika Rani was sent to boarding school in England at age nine and grew up in that country. In 1928, she met Himanshu Rai, an Indian film-producer, and married him the following year. She assisted in costume design and art direction for Rai's experimental silent film A Throw of Dice (1929). Both of them then went to Germany and received training in film-making at UFA Studios in Berlin. Rai then cast himself as hero and her as heroine in his next production, the bilingual film Karma, made simultaneously in English and Hindi. The film premiered in England in 1933, elicited interest there for a prolonged kissing scene featuring the real-life couple, and flopped badly in India. The couple returned to Bombay, India in 1934, where Himanshu Rai established a production studio, Bombay Talkies, in partnership with certain other people. They changed their studio name. The studio produced several successful films over the next 5–6 years in that time of period, and Devika Rani played the lead role in many of them. Her on-screen pairing with Ashok Kumar became popular in India.