Born in London on October 21, 1939,
Helen clearly realized being called
Helen Jairag Richardson would have been a bit much for Indian audiences to quite digest, and so Indian cinema’s dancing queen used just her first name. Not that she needed more, she was loved right from 1958’s
Howrah Bridge, where she grooved to
Mera naam Chin Chin Chu…. She was born in Burma. By all accounts Helen’s early life was not easy and after her father died during World War II her mother was forced to leave Burma and flee to India with little Helen and the rest of her children. Helen’s mother could not earn enough money on her own to support her family, so Helen left school and started working in films to help with the family’s financial burden. By age thirteen Helen was getting small roles in Bollywood films as a chorus girl or back-up dancer. In 1953 she started to gain recognition for her dancing skills and Helen began performing solo dance numbers in musicals like
Alif Laila in 1953. As Helen grew into a beautiful young woman casting directors started offering her more adult roles and her big breakthrough role came in 1958 when she was only 16 years old in the popular Bollywood film
Howrah Bridge in 1958. Helen is regarded as an all-time great as a dancer in Hindi films. Helen managed to infuse her musical numbers with her own exotic charm and lots of energy. As the sixties approached she was becoming a recognizable name in the Bollywood film industry and in the following two decades Helen was offered plenty of opportunities to showcase her stunning beauty and impressive dancing abilities, as well as her great comedic timing.
She has appeared in over 500 Bollywood movies during the height of her career, which is an amazing accomplishment for any performer. Helen was known for wearing very revealing and sexy costumes in her films as well as various wigs and colored contacts. This made her easily standout and combined with her beauty and talent, it was easy for Helen to steal just about any scene she appears in even though she was never a huge Bollywood star in the traditional sense. In many movies Helen was reduced to being the bad girl or other woman who was often rejected at the end of the film by the handsome male star for a less interesting good girl that he could bring home to mother. She also plays a bit of a lush in many films who enjoys drowning her sorrows and forgetting her cares with a drink or two. Helen could be called the “Queen of Bollywood Bad Girls” as well as
Queen of the Nautch Girls.Many of the early Bollywood films featuring Helen are often crime thrillers or secret agent spy dramas clearly inspired by the worldwide success of the James Bond films. For Helen, the situation was exacerbated by the fact that she underwent major financial problems. With age, the number of roles that came her way began to shrink. Thereafter, she shocked many by acknowledging the relentless footfalls of time and playing
Zeenat\'s mother in
Ram Balram in 1980! She married writer
Salim Khan, and receded from the screen.
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