| | Bollywood's Power Couples | | | | | | | | | Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai: The grandniece of legendary poet Rabindranath Tagore, Devika Rani is aptly remembered as the leading lady of Indian cinema. She married producer-actor Himanshu Rai in 1929. The talented twosome starred in Karma in 1933, but their power move was founding the Bombay Talkies film studio. At one time, Bombay Talkies boasted of producing films by leading actors of the time, such as Ashok Kumar and Madhubala, apart from Devika Rani herself.
After Himanshu Rai's death in 1940, control of Bombay Talkies slipped away from Devika Rani's hands. She fought for control but three years later, veterans of the once-powerful studio broke away to form another powerful studio-Filmstan.
Devika Rani remarried in 1945. Though honoured with the Padma Shri and later the first recipient of the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award, life was never the same again for Devika Rani. Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai were truly India's first power couple in showbiz. | | | | |
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