K. L. Saigal

Kundan Lal Saigal ( often referred to as KL Saigal, Hindi: कुन्दन लाल सहगल, Kundan Lāl Sahagal; born April 4, 1904 in Nawa Shahar Jammu, † January 18, 1947 in Jalandhar, Punjab ) was an Indian singer and actor. He is considered the first superstar of the Hindi film: His portrayal of the title role in PC Baruas Devdas set the standard for the game in Indian musical melodramas and he inspired with his singing later singer of Indian film music as Mukesh, Talat Mahmood, Kishore Kumar and Kozhikode Abdul Qadir.

Biography

As a child, Saigal acted as Sita in Ramlila on performances. He did not receive a formal acting or vocal training, but he intoned poetry of Mirza Ghalib in a separate thumriähnlichen style. A first record with footage of him was published in the early 1930s in the Indian Gramophone Company. However, Saigal was working full time as a seller of typewriters as BN Sircar hired him in 1932 because of his singing skills for the film company New Theatres in Kolkata.

Kundan Lal Saigal had his film debut in 1932 in three Urdu movies of Premankur Atorthy. In the following years he appeared mostly in Hindi films of the studio under the direction of Debaki Bose, Nitin Bose and PC Barua on, including in the title role of the first major Hindi success of New Theatres: Nitin Bose's Chandidas (1934 ). His vocal style has been trained in this period under the film music composer Rai Chand Boral, later he also sang pieces of Timir Baran and Pankaj Mullick there. With Devdas (1936 ), in the Hindi version he played the title role, Saigal received his outstanding popularity status. In the Bengali version he only played a small role - his first appearance in a film of this language - and sang two movie songs, just in PV Rao's Tamil version from 1936 in Pujarin, the Hindi remake of the first Bengali talkie Dena Paona (. 1931) was to see KL Saigal after Devdas same in another Saratchandra - Chattopadhyay adaptation.

Kundan Lal Saigal remained until 1941 when New Theatres and was with his popularity as a performer and singer, both in Bengali and in the Hindi versions of the films, the dominant star of the film company. In 1938 he played and sang at Nitin Bose directed in Dushman - a film as part of Lady Linlithgow (wife of the new Governor-General of India ) immunization program against tuberculosis to the efforts of the tuberculosis fund the government to mobilize the population was - and Phani Majumdar directorial debut, Street Singer. In Zindagi (1940 ) Saigal was seen after Devdas for the second time on the side of the Jamuna, the wife of the director PC Barua. He embodied in this film a vagabond, who lives with a woman who has run away from her husband. With the role in Parichay (1941 ) he coined the stereotype of the romanticized, neglected in love artist, as it was successfully taken up by Guru Dutt in Pyaasa.

Kundan Lal Saigal 1942 went to Bombay and worked from then on Chandulal Shah's Ranjit Movietone film company. His first film for that studio was Bhakta Surdas Chaturbhuj Doshi. In the role of a court musician Tansen in Jayant Desai's film of the same from 1943 Saigal reached the first peak of his career in the Bombay film productions. In Hemchandra Chunders World War II love story Meri Bahen who built Saigals particular interpretations of the songs of Pankaj Mullick movie, he stood again in 1944 for New Theatres in front of the camera. He had his last movie success in AR Kardars costume drama Shahjehan ( 1946).

Saigal died in 1947 at the age of only 42 years. 1955 was directed by Nitin Bose, the film Amar Saigal on the life of the actor and singer, in the numerous songs from Saigals films can be seen. From Saigals total of 185 sound recordings are 142 songs from movies, the other bhajans and ghazals.

Filmography

Footnotes

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