LEELA NAIDU

LEELA NAIDU

Leela Naidu(1940 – 28 July 2009) starred in a small number of

Hindi and English films.

She was Femina Miss India in 1954, and was featured in the

VOGUE in the list of 'World's Ten Most Beautiful Women',

a list she was continuously listed from the 1950s to the

1960s in prominent fashion magazines worldwide. She is

remembered for her stunning classical beauty and subtle

acting style

Leela Naidu was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India to

Dr. Pattabi Ramaiah Naidu, a well known Nuclear Physicist from Andhra., who worked under the

supervision of Nobel Laureate MARIE CURIE for his

doctoral thesis in Paris and ran one of her labs.

He was Scientific Advisor to UNESCO for Southeast Asia, and later, an advisor to the Tata group.

Her mother, journalist and Indologist Dr. Marthe Mange Naidu, was of Swiss-French origin, and earned her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne

In the prime of her beauty and youth, when she had just made a splash in Hindi cinema, she was chosen by Vogue magazine as one of the five most beautiful women in the world.

David Lean wanted to cast her as Tonya in Dr Zhivago.

Salvador Dali used her as a model for the Madonna.

Satyajit Ray wanted to make a film with her and Marlon Brando.

There were compliments from

Ingrid Bergman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Bergman

and

salutes from

Jean Renoir http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Renoir

and

David Lean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lean

"

....( SOURCE: Published: Sunday, Jun 13, 2010, 0:37 IST By G Sampath | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA)

On her personal attribute, we could see a strong person in support of the weaker section of the society.

Be it the villagers of UP in their fight against the land mafia, the right to use the road during the religious ceremony, the one man( woman) fight against the plight of extras in the film shooting sets, the support for better food for the animals ( elephants ) during the shooting of a film were enough proof for her conviction and willingness to go to any extend to get things done towards what she believe.

In the earlier chapters, she tells us the racial slurs and difficulties she had to face during her student years, and she slams India as one of the most racist countries in the world, with our age old caste systems and the way the lower classes are treated by the rich.

She was a biracial woman, as much at home in Europe (her mother was an Irish Indologist, with Franco-Swiss roots) as she was in India

She was a woman truly at home in the world, and her photographs from the time confirm it.

In the simple drapes of her saris, free of make-up she travelled through the country with poet-writer Moraes, whether she was taking dictation from

Indira Gandhi

or

protesting on behalf of landless Dalits, she was the consummate face of an enlightened, independent India, still fired by the ideals of independence, impatient with consumerism and wary of social exhibitionism.

The same appeal was evident in those films of hers, chosen judiciously across the decades –

Hrishikesh Mukherjee's

Anuradha,

Merchant-Ivory's

The Householder, and

Shyam Benegal's

1985 classic,

Trikaal.

Years later, Benegal would say that she 'breathed innocence and tranquility' into her performance. It was a succinct description of what she represents in those black-and-white frames of her early life.

.