1st Filmfare Awards

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1st Filmfare Awards
Bimal Roy, Meena Kumari & Naushad- the first recipients of Filmfare awards.jpg
Date21 March 1954 [1]
Site Metro Cinema, Bombay
Hosted by David
Highlights
Best Film Do Bigha Zamin
Most awards Baiju Bawra & Do Bigha Zamin (2)

The 1st Filmfare Awards were held on 21 March 1954, honoring the best in Hindi cinema in 1953.

Contents

That year they were known as the Clare Awards, after Clare Mendonça, a film critic of The Times of India who had died in the same year. [1]

Baiju Bawra & Do Bigha Zamin won 2 awards each, with the former winning Best Actress (for Meena Kumari) and Best Music Director (for Naushad for ''Tu Ganga Ki Mauj''), and the latter winning Best Film and Best Director (for Bimal Roy), thus becoming the most-awarded films at the ceremony.

Dilip Kumar won his first of eight Best Actor awards for his performance in Daag .

The Awards

In a short ceremony held at Metro Cinema in Bombay (now Mumbai), awards in only 5 categories were handed out. [1] The Chief Guest of function was George Allen, US Ambassador to India. The ceremony was compared by actor David, and it started with actress Nalini Jaywant singing the national anthem. This was followed by song and dance performance by various actors, musical performances by Talat Mehmood, Geeta Roy and Mohammed Rafi. Next two performances were classical dance performances by Vyjayanthimala and Surya Kumari. The finale of the performance section was a folk-dance performance, "Lure of Rajasthan" by Kamini Kaushal and her troupe. [2]

This led to the section where David announced the awards. No nominations were announced, just the winners. Keep with the voting process, where the readers of the magazine, [3] decided the winners through postal votes, even the awards were given away by readers, chosen via a lucky draw. For example, the Best Film trophy was given by Ambassador Allen to a reader, Saijuddin from Hyderabad, who in turn presented it to Bimal Roy. This was followed by Best Actress which was won by Meena Kumari for Baiju Bawra and Best Actor went to Dilip Kumar for Daag. [2] Next, ace music director Naushad won his first and only Filmfare Award, for Best Music for Baiju Bawra. [4] The final award, the Best Director was won by Bimal Roy, present by Sonny Cordiero, a reader from Mumbai. [2]

Incidentally, Bimal Roy and Dilip Kumar were the first winners of Best Director and Best Actor respectively, and remained almost 6 decades later, the ones with the most wins in either category, with 7 and 8 awards respectively. Additionally, Meena Kumari, who was the first winner for Best Actress, held the record for the most wins in the category (4) for 13 years, till her record was broken by Nutan with her 5th win at the 26th Filmfare Awards. [4] Fearing similar mob of fans as outside Metro Cinema, the venue of the award party was not announced publicly. Later, around hundred invitees gathered at Wellington Gymkhana Club. [2]

Hollywood star Gregory Peck was invited to be the guest of honour at the awards but could not make it to the function since his flight from Colombo got delayed. However, Peck did attend the after-party banquet that followed the award night at Wellington Gymkhana Club, Mumbai. [2] [5] [6]

Bimal Roy holding a filmfare award.jpg
Bimal Roy, Best Director
Naushadsaab1 (cropped).jpg
Naushad, Best Music Director
Dilip Kumar in 1946.jpg
Dilip Kumar, Best Actor
Meena Kumari.jpg
Meena Kumari, Best Actress
Best Film
Best Director Best Music Director
Best Actor Best Actress

Superlatives

The following films had multiple wins

MovieAwards
Baiju Bawra 2
Do Bigha Zameen

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "Tollywood's tryst with Black Lady". The Times of India. 9 March 2014. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Brigadier Samir Bhattacharya (19 December 2013). NOTHING BUT!: Book Three: What Price Freedom. Partridge Publishing. pp. 214–215. ISBN   978-1-4828-1625-9.
  3. Aswin Punathambekar; Anandam P. Kavoori; Rachel Dwer (1 August 2008). Global Bollywood. NYU Press. pp. 243–244. ISBN   978-0-8147-2944-1.
  4. 1 2 "The Winners - 1953". Official Listings, Filmfare Awards, Indiatimes. Archived from the original on 9 March 2004. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
  5. "'I behaved like Gregory Peck to impress Suraiya'". The Times of India. 14 June 2003. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
  6. liveindia.com. "Filmfare Awards Facts". Liveindia.com. Retrieved 30 September 2012.