Sheila Ramani – Profile
Sheila Ramani in Anokhi (1956)
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Sheila Ramani, a forgotten name today, but most of us still remember her in Navketan’s Taxi Driver (1954) where she was cast as Anglo-Indian club Dancer – Sylvie. Sheila Ramani was introduced by Chetan Anand to Hindi films, which explains her association with Navketan. She was born in Sindh, and one of the few Sindhi actresses besides Sadhana who made it big in Bollywood. She was crowned Miss Shimla in the early 50s and was mostly seen as upper class mod girl in the 50s, a role she enacted to perfection all through that swinging era in films like V. Shantaram’s Teen Batti Char Raaste (1953), Sheikh Mukhtar’s Mangu (1954), Meenar (1954), Railway Platform (1955), and Funtoosh (1956).
Her Uncle Sheikh Latif alias Lachchu was a famous Pakistani producer who produced films like Pattan (1955), Khizan Kai Baad (1955), Darbar-e-Habib (1956) etc. Sheila visited Karachi – Pakistan on the request of her Uncle, to play the lead in Pakistani film Anokhi (1956). The film was based on well known English comedy of the time. “Gari ko chalana babu, zara halkey halkey halkey, zara dil ka jaam na chalkey” sung by Zubeda Khanum was the popular song from the film which did modest to good business in Pakistan. The movie’s great music was composed jointly by Timir Baran (a bengali who came from India for this purporse) and Hassan Latif. Sheila went back to India and remained as a middle-of-the-range performer in Bombay films. In the later part of her career, she was reduced to obscure films with titles that sounded like Jungle King (1959), and The Return of Superman (1960 – one of the last films composed by Anil Biswas). She bid adieu to films, got married and moved to U.S.A.
Nowadays, she lives in a small Indian town and keeps a low profile.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Joan Crawford (1904 - 1977)
Omar Sharif (1931 - )
Peepli [Live] - 2010
Nazir Ali
Railway Platform (1955)
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her full name was Sheila Kewalramani. Her father used to live in one of the off-shoots of Coonaught Place in New Delhi. I met him in 1968, and he told me that she had moved on to the US.
Thanks for the info on Sheila Ramani. It will help me when I will do an encyclopedic entry on her.
Admn.
When I wrote a post on her in MEMSAAB’s blog,one Mr.Siddharth,who is writing a book on Navketan replied to me thus-
“Sheila Ramani lives in a small Indian town.I did track her down for interview,but her son said she was not too well and may not be in a position to answer any questions.I did not want to disturb her privacy.She made a lot of efforts to keep her family away from the film industry after she retired.”
she must have come back from US and settled in India.
this is for your information.
-AD
contd….
This is the story of April 2011.
-AD
Thanks Arun,
For sharing this info on Sheila. That is sad that she is not in the position to answer questions
. Even I had few questions for her.