Chand Burke
- Actress
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.
