Dev Anand Remembers Madhubala.

Dev Anand remembers Madhubala (Excerpt from Dev Anand’s Autobiography — Romancing with Life)

“I remember Kala Pani the most for Madhubala, its leading lady, the most beautiful of all the heroines in the fairyland of films, with her natural looks, always as fresh as a morning dew, sans heavy make-up, false eyelashes, contact lenses or scanty dresses fashioned by designers to impart artificial glamour that would titillate male curiosity. Her childlike innocence was accentuated by the most noticeable trait of her character, her famous giggle. Every time I think of her, I hear her giggle outside my make-up room, followed by a knock at the door that announced her arrival.

`So you have arrived! Ho-ho-ho!’ I would greet her.

And her ‘Yes, I have’ was always substituted by another giggle. She was forever giggling at the slightest pretext. Nobody knew when the next bout of giggles would come, and once it did, how long it would last!

Many times she would suddenly start giggling during a take when the camera was on. The lights had to be switched off indefinitely and tea ordered, until she was able to get a hold of herself and rein in her mirth.

The great giggler was perhaps laughing at the world around her that did not know that she had a damaged heart, and would die quite young.”

(Dev Anand & Madhubala in Jaali Note 1960)