Veena (actress)

Veena Sapru (July 4, 1926 - November, 2004) also known as Veena Kumari was a female actress in India.

Veena was born as Tajour Sultana on July 4, 1926 in Quetta, Balochistan, British India. At some point of time, her family shifted to Lahore and she belonged to Lahore's Chuna Mandi. She started out playing heroine roles in Pre-Partition films. She made her debut with "Garib" and "Gawandhi" (1942) at around sixteen years of age. "Garib" was made in Urdu and "Gawandhi" was made in Punjabi and directed by Mehboob Khan. In "Garib", she played the role of Lata and in "Gawandhi" she played heroine opposite Shyam who played the hero. She became famous as actress and heroine in Pre-Partition Hindi and Urdu films. Her early years in films came with films like "Najma" (1943), "Phool" (1945), and "Humayun" (1945). Her last film before the Partition of India was "Rajputani" (1946) in which she played a supporting role. She decided to remain in India after the partition and she acted through the mid-to-late-1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and early-1980s. She played roles in big films like "Halaku" (1956), "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi" (1958), "Kaagaz Ke Phool" (1959), "Taj Mahal" (1963), "Do Raaste" (1969), and "Pakeezah" (1972). She retired in 1983 after the release of "Razia Sultan" (1983) in which she played Empress Shah Turkhan. She died in Bombay in 2004 after 21 years of retirement when she was 78 years old after suffering from a protracted illness. She had appeared in over 70 feature films in a career spanning 41 years (1942 till 1983).

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*imdb name|id=0474940|name=Veena