Who would have guessed that, as early as the 1930’s, there was an action heroine in Indian cinema, who did all her own stunts, and defied all the conventions of passive and simpering femininity, and played second fiddle to no male? That’s the most remarkable information in this study. Starting with Hunterwali (1935), Fearless Nadia starred in a series of extremely popular adventure films. “The female protagonist entered the scene on horseback, with the clarion call of ‘Hey-y-y‑y’, hand raised defiantly inn the air, riding in with the pride and arrogance that was more befitting of Douglas Fairbanks.” This remarkable actress had started out as a steno-typist, but, inclined to be plump, took dancing lessons. Then she joined a traveling circus, and a ballet troop. Her amazing film stunts (all real) included hoisting strong men on her back, fighting four lions, swinging from chandeliers, leaping from cliffs into waterfalls. She rode, swam, tumbled, wrestled and fenced her way through numerous films, often with a mask and a whip, until she was nearly fifty.
0 Comments.