Madhubala is highly regarded asThe Beauty with Tragedy and The Venus of Indian Cinema. She was an Indian film actress who appeared in classic films of Hindi cinema. She was active between 1942 and 1960. Along with her contemporaries Nargis and Meena Kumari, she is often regarded as one of the most influential personalities of Hindi cinema. She is also considered to be one of the most beautiful actresses to have worked in the industry.
Madhubala was born Mumtaz Jehan Dehlavi, onFebruary 1933 in Delhi, British India. She was a native Pashtospeaker. Her father was Attaullah Khan, a Yusufzai Pashtun from the Swabi District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in Pakistan, and her mother was Ayesha Begum. She belonged to an orthodox middleclass family and was the fifth of eleven children. After her father lost his job at the Imperial Tobacco Company in Peshawar, he relocated to Delhi followed by Mumbai. There, the family endured many hardships. Madhubalas three sisters and two brothers died at the age of five and six. The dock explosion and fire of April 14, 1944 wiped out their small home. The family survived only because they had gone to see a film at a local theater. With his six remaining daughters to provide for, Khan, and the young Madhubala, began to pay frequent visits to Bombay film studios to look for work. At the age of 9, this was Madhubalas introduction to the movie industry, which would provide financial help to her
Source: Wikipedia