Biography of Motilal

(1910 - 1965)

Motilal was born in 1910. He entered the world of Hindi Cinema with his film 'Shaher Ke Jaadoo', in 1934. His second film The Silver King' was released in 1935. He took great pains to learn acting from a Frenchman for the action scenes.

His films ‘Jagirdar’, ‘Hum Tum Aur Woh' and 'Taqdeer' were highly successful. The 1940s marked Motilal's emergence as a major star. In A.R. Kardar's 'Holi', Motilal gave a performance of remarkable depth and vivid intelligence.

By the 1950s, Motilal had lost most of his money at the races, as he was very fond of sports. Consequently, he started playing character roles. The most memorable character roles played by him were in the films- ‘Devdas’ and ‘Jagte Raho'.

In the 1959 film – ‘Anari' and ‘Paigam', Motilal, playing the role of a villain, gave a whole new dimension to the word evil. This versatile artist died in 1965.