Chand Burke

Chand Burke made her debut in Maheshwari Productions' Kahan Gaye (1946), which Niranjan wrote and directed. They fell in love on the sets and got married in 1945. Thereafter, Chand appeared in a number of films made in Lahore, and was widely known as "the Dancing Lily of the Punjab." Partition and her subsequent migration to Bombay adversely affected her career. After "Hamari Manzil," which was released in 1949, Chand Burke went into complete oblivion. It was Raj Kapoor who selected her for that important role as children's tormentor in "Boot Polish," over 200 other contestants, her screen-test convincing Raj Kapoor that she was a talented actress. Chand was the only one in a family of twelve brothers and sisters to have joined the films (her brother S. M. Burke, I.C.S., was a Minister to the Scandina­vian countries for Pakistan). Chand ob­tained judicial separation by mutual consent from her husband, writer-director Niranjan in 1954.