Patience Cooper

Patience Cooper was an Angolo-Indian, who was born in Calcutta, India. In Bandmann’s Musical Comedy, she began her career as a dancer and later on as an actress joined the Jamshedji Framji Madan’s Corinithian Stage Company. At a very young age of 21, she married a well-known Indian businessman, Mirza Ahmad Ispahani Saheb (MAH Ispahani) with whom she migrated to Pakistan in the year 1947. After her divorce with him, she got married to one the earliest silent movie actor, Gul Hamid Khan, who due to Hodgkin’s disease died six years later. She adopted two daughters in Karachi, Zeenat, and Haleema with whom she spent the last days of her life. She also has a foster daughter Syeda Rizvi, who now is a resident of Houston, Texas, USA. Seventeen children were either adopted or fostered by her throughout her lifetime.

She had also changed her to Sabra Begum. Patience Cooper is regarded as the first ever Indian film star. Due to the conservative attitudes of her era, the numbers of women in the film industry especially Hindu women were very low and, as a result, the demand of Angolo-Indian women was very high. In the year 1920, she made a mark with the movie Nala Damayanti. The movie was directed by Eugenio de Liguoro an Italian and had a big budget. The movie became known for its special effects. Next, in 1921, she starred in the movie Vishnu Avtar. In the same year, she acted in another movie by Eugenio de Liguoro called Dhruva Charitra. The film had Cooper as the female lead along with many Europeans.

In 1922, she did Pati Bhakti, which was the most notable films that she did although it was involved in a controversy for a dance number that the censor board considered obscene and demanded it to be removed from the movie. In the year 1923, Cooper played the first ever double role in Hindi film in the movie Patni Pratap as twin sisters. Her next movie, Kashmiri Sundari, in the year 1924, also saw her play a double role as a mother and daughter. With a career in over forty movies, she decided to retire in the year 1944, after doing her last movie, Iraada. A major factor that led to Cooper’s popularity was her similar appearance to Hollywood stars, achieved by technicians through the use of various lightning techniques.

Cooper Family Tree (Infographic Family Tree)