Kamlabai Gokhale

Kamalabai Gokhle

Kamlabai Gokhale, born Kamlabai Kamath, was the first actress of Indian cinema, along with her mother Durgabai Kamat.

She was the daughter of Durgabai Kamat, who was the first female actress of Indian cinema and Anand Nanoskar, a professor of history at the J.J. School of Art . She married Raghunathrao Gokhale and had three children, Chandrakant Gokhale, Lalji Gokhale and Suryakant Gokhale. Chandrakant Gokhale is one of them, who is the father of Vikram Gokhale (occasionally credited as Vikram Gokhle) is well known Indian film, television and stage actor. Lalji Gokhale and Suryakant Gokhale were acclaimed Tabala maestros. Kamlabai was 25 when she became a widow, pregnant with her third child.

Her first stage appearance was at the age of four. Around 1912-1913 Dadasaheb Phalke, the pioneering film-maker of India, was casting for his film Mohini Bhasmasur and he choose Kamlabai for the lead. Durgabai was Parvati. Phalke had been forced to use a young male cook, Salunke, to play the female lead in his earlier film, Raja Harishchandra, for lack of an actress. By the time she was 15, Kamlabai had become a celebrity. The following year she married Raghunathrao Gokhale. He had been with the Kirloskar Natak Company where he usually performed female roles. But his voice was breaking and so he moved to his brother’s company, which was the same one where Kamlabai and her mother were employed. The young couple was cast as the new lead pair of the company. In the 1930s, Kamlabai worked under Veer Savarkar in the play Ushaap, which focussed on the plight of Harijans. Kamalabai worked in around 35 movies. Her last film was Gehrayee (1980).

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