Helen Ann Richardson / Image- Wikipedia

Aaa Jaane Jaan…remember Kareena Kapooг Khan singing this number in her film Jaane Jaan? Originally from the film Intaquam, the song is sung by Lata Mangeshkar and not Asha Bhonsale who has mastered cabarets, but the mismatch doesn’t stop there. This seductive, and quietly luring song is picturized on a caged man with animalistic instincts and Helen in a black leotard scattered with diamantes not just on her clothes but all over her face.

The imagery would have jarred as an antithesis to the song had it not been for Helen. It is her inherent ability to make anything and everything look good.

If we were to start from the beginning, we would have begin at the time when she was known as Helen Ann Richardson. AS Helen herself admitted she never had to struggled in Bollywood, her struggle started long before she even made it to India. Born to an Anglo-Indian dad and Burmese mom, the Richardson family was doing fine in Burma before the war broke out. Mr Richardson passed away in the war, leaving his wife and four children helpless and frightened. The only way to survive was to cross the borders and reach the safe haven called India.

The journey from Burma (present day Myanmar) to Assam wasn’t easy. Having lost her little brother taught her that one must do whatever one has to in order to survive. It was actress/dancer Cuckoo, a family friend and fellow Anglo-Indian who helped her get background dancer’s parts in movies. But when you are blessed with talent, you won’t go unnoticed. I took her seven years but Helen finally made it to the fore with ‘Mera naam chin chinchu..’ in Shakti Samanta’s Howrah Bridge. The song till date ranks amongst the top choreographies of its time.

She was 19 when Howrah Bridge was released, and didn’t really know the tricks of the trade. For Helen, it was sufficient that the money that came from making these songs was keeping the stove burning at home. That one superhit song saw her suddenly rubbing shoulders with her mentor, Cuckoo in Yahudi. Cuckoo was someone who had been dancing for over 14 years already, the freshness Helen brought with her what might have seemed like a threat and while the two matched pace in “Bechain dil, khoyi si nazar…” it became evident that Helen will be taking over from there on…

Helen’s trademark pout, dramatic eyes and of course, her dance moves were something everyone seemed to love. She brought out an innocence which was in complete contrast with her coquettish gestures. The outfits she wore ranged from ghagra choli to leotards, but she never showed skin. She always wote a skin coloured cloth covering her from the eyes of even her most andent fans. But once dances, always a dancer: At least that was the norm in Bollywood. Item songs as they are called today weren’t the same then, they usually needed a story explaining the girl’s presence in the scene: if the song was sultry, she was almost always had to play a vamp who tried to steal the hero from the heroine, or she was undercover living it up only for a song, right before she was shot dead. All in all, she was a girl of ill-repute and thus had to be treated thus. Despite the kind of work she did, no one in their right mind would compare her onscreen image to the person she actually was.

She excelled in Manipuri dance form but she knew Kathak too, so her range of dancing went from south to north, and east to west beating all competition if there were any. With each film, her popularity increased. She might have been the only dancer who fitted in seamlessly in films like Hum Hindustani but also China Town, who played a suave, polished girl in Don but a vagabond in Sholay. 

She won hearts with her dancing and efficiently played her part in luring audiences to the theaters… but despite her popularity she couldn’t transcend the wall between dancer and actor. There are many reasons for that, the most popular notion being once you are established as a dancer, you cannot be perceived as the puritan, the actresses in the 70s and 80s were supposed to be. Her Anglicized looks and difficulty in the Hindi language didn’t help her case either. Yet, she acted as the main lead in over 15 films! It was on the sets of one such film that Helen met Salim Khan. The film was called Kabli Khan, and Salim played the dreaded villain who eyed her.

A popular script writer, Salman Khan’s father, Salim was a popular name in the industry, it was known to all that he was already married and a father of four. For a long time, he had been struggling to get main lead parts while Helen was hoping to make the switch from dancer to actress, to help extend her time in the industry. The two obviously formed a kinship.

“I was never ambitious, I was just doing my job,” she has been quoted saying multiple times, but she never really took her job as an errand, instead she ensured she was the best in whatever she did. She insists she never had any professional regrets but there was always one thing she yearned for! She always wanted the stability of a family! Her marriage with director Prem Narayan Arora was over before they could start a family. Their 27 year gap hadn’t helped smooth their differences and at that moment finding a friend and confidante in Salim Khan was more than she had hoped for.

While she never meant to break Salim’s family, she found herself needing to be a part of it. She finally got something that she had wanted for herself – a family! After 43 years of marriage with Salim, Helen is an indispensable part of the Khan-daan. The visuals of everyone gathering together for Ganpati celebrations and Eid alike tell you, that despite the trials and misfortunes that etched her early years, Helen is at peace today and exactly where she always wanted to be. In her 80s today, she is no nautch girl, but kudos to the matron who still maintains her Innocent charm.