Madame Azurie was a highly popular dancer in early Indian cinema, starring in over 700 movies.
Key Points
- Priyanka Chopra Jonas will portray Madame Azurie, considered the first ‘item girl’ of Indian cinema in Mira Nair’s film Amri.
- Madame Azurie was a highly popular dancer in early Indian cinema, known for her ‘lightning-footed’ performances and starring in over 700 movies.
- Audiences would reportedly attend films specifically to watch Azurie’s dance numbers, leaving once her performance concluded.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas takes her love for dance to Mira Nair’s celluloid portrait of Indian-Hungarian painter Amrita Sher-Gill, Amri.
Priyanka plays the first item girl of Indian cinema, Madame Azurie, who was known as the lightning-footed dancer of Indian cinema in the early part of this century, in Amri.
The Legacy of Madame Azurie
Azurie was a trained dancer and rapidly became a craze among audiences. It is said that audiences would go repeatedly to the theatre to watch Azurie’s dance and then leave the theatre when it ended.
Azurie starred in more than 700 movies. She was also invited to Buckingham Palace for a dance performance.
According to Wikipedia, ‘Azurie was born as Anna Marie Gueizelor in 1907 (some accounts put it as 1916) in Bangalore. Her mother was a Hindu Brahmin nurse while her father was a Jewish German doctor.’
‘When her parents separated, she lived with her father who encouraged her to study ballet, but not eastern dance. He let his daughter study ballet and piano with a group of Russian emigrants. Azurie and her family moved to Bombay, when she was in her adolescent years.’
‘She married a Muslim man and settled in Rawalpindi, Pakistan after independence. There she opened the academy of classical dance where Azurie taught for many years. Azurie also acted in a few Pakistani films. Azurie died in August 1998.’
Priyanka’s Preparation and Role
To play this fascinating firecracker, Priyanka has watched the dancing styles of the early movies and would perform a dance number as Azurie in Amri.
This is not the first time Priyanka would be doing an item song. In Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram Leela, her dance number Ram Chahe Leela Chahe was a smash hit. Priyanka is also an executive producer on Amri.
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
