The Woman with a Whip

A typically bizarre hotch-potch of "names" were born on this day - not least our beloved Dame Shirley Bassey and David Bowie - including Gypsy Rose Lee, Graham Chapman, Stephen Hawking, Elvis Presley, William Hartnell, Dennis Wheatley, Ron Moody, Roy Kinnear, Wilkie Collins, José Ferrer, Saeed Jaffrey, Kim Jong-un and - ahem - R. Kelly, but, speaking of "bizarre", there is another birthday celebrant that probably wouldn't feature on many people's list of the "great and the good"...

...Fearless Nadia!

Born Mary Ann Evans in Australia to a Scottish father and a Greek mother, hers was already a rich mix of cultures even before the family moved to India. It was there that this blonde, blue-eyed athletic ballet dancer, after touring with "Madame Astrova's dance troupe" and with the Zarko Circus, first caught the eye of Wadia Movitone studios - pioneering producers in the early days of Bollywood cinema - in 1934; and was cast as a stuntwoman for their films. 

By this time, after consulting a fortune-teller, Mary had renamed herself Nadia.

In spite of her distinctly non-Indian appearance (and outfits), her roles as "the fearless heroine fighting evil oppressors" - displaying her impressive circus stunts, cartwheels and leaps as she did battle, and her strength by throwing men around - became massively popular in such melodramas as Hunterwalli ("The Woman with a Whip"), Hurricane Hansa, Jungle Princess, Lady Robinhood and Punjab Mail. 

In all, she made 55 such films, and in most of them her unfortunate co-star was muscleman John Cowas, who inevitably was on the receiving end of that whip.

"Fearless Nadia", as she became known to her adoring public, eventually married one of the Wadias, Homi [although the couple had to wait until his matriarchal mother died before they could tie the knot in 1961], retired from cinema, and lived out the rest of her life breeding racehorses. She died in 1996, the day after her 88th birthday.

It's a fascinating story. What a remarkable woman!

Nadi Wadia (8th January 1908 – 9th January 1996)