Madhur Jaffrey is an actor, food and travel writer, and television personality. She is famous for bringing Indian cuisine to the West. She made her debut in 1973 with the cookbook “An Invitation to Indian Cooking.”
Wiki/Biography
Madhur Jaffrey was born in Delhi on Sunday 13 August 1933 (age 88 years; as of 2021). Her zodiac sign is Leo. She attended St. Mary’s Convent School, Kanpur and Queen Mary High School, Delhi. She graduated from Miranda House, Delhi in 1950 and from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1955. She received a BA with Honors in English. Jaffrey was born in Delhi and moved to Kanpur when he was two years old. At the age of five, she played a mouse in the play “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” In 1944, she moved back to Delhi. While in high school, she played Titania in the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and had the title role in the play “Robin Hood and His Merry Men.” During her summer vacations, she worked and was paid to work at All India Radio. While still a student in 1950, Jaffrey appeared in many plays. In 1951 she joined the Union Theater of Derry. The theater was founded by Saeed Jaffrey. After graduation, she worked as a disc jockey at All India Radio, while Saeed worked as an announcer at the station. They fell in love with each other. She met the British novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who wrote “To Whom She Will” in 1955 based on the love story of Said and Madour. In 1955, she played the mother in the play “Auto-da-Fe”. She was admitted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to study acting. The food she had eaten there before was tasteless and she didn’t like it at all. She asked her mother to give her the recipe so she could cook easily.
appearance
Height (approximately): 5′0″
Weight (approximately): 60kg
Hair color: black
Eye color: black
family
Parents and siblings
Jafri’s father’s name is Lala Raj Bansi Bahadur and his mother’s name is Kashmir Rani. She has two brothers. Their names were Brigitte Bansi Bahadur and Krishen Bansi Bahadur. She has three sisters. Their names are Lalit, Kamal and Veena.
Madhur Jaffrey (centre) with her sisters Kamal (left) and Lalit
husband and children
Madhur Jaffrey married actor Saeed Jaffrey in 1958. Their marriage lasted seven years and they divorced in 1965.
Madhur Jaffrey and ex-husband Saeed Jaffrey
In 1969, Madur remarried violinist Sanford Allen.
Madhur Jaffrey and husband Sanford Allen
She has three daughters. Their names are Zia Jaffrey (Assistant Professor), Meera Jaffrey (Teacher) and Sakina Jaffrey (Actor).
Madhur Jaffrey’s daughter Zia Jaffrey
Madhur Jaffrey and her daughter Sakina Jaffrey
Profession
Movie
Madhur acted in the films Shakespeare Vara (1965), Guru (1969), A Princess (1976), Heat and Dust (1983) and A Perfect Murder (1988).
Madhur Jaffrey and Shashi Kapoor co-star in the film Shakespeare Walla
Madhur Jaffrey in the movie “Master”
Madhur Jaffrey stars in the movie “The Princess”
Madhur Jaffrey in the movie “Heat and Dust”
Madhur Jaffrey in the movie “The Perfect Murder”
television
Madhur appeared on Madhur Jaffrey’s Far Eastern Cookery in 1989 and Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavors of India in 1995. In 2019, she starred in a rap video with Zohran Mamdani (son of director Mira Nair).
cooking
Madhur wrote her first cookbook in 1973. The title is “An Invitation to Indian Cooking”.
Madhur Jaffrey’s book “An Invitation to Indian Cooking”
In 2006, her memoir was published. The memoir is called Climbing the Mango Tree.
Madhur Jaffrey’s memoir “Climbing the Mango Tree”
dispute
In 2014, Madhur Jaffrey told a program (Cheltenham Literary Festival) that the dish Balti was not very popular. Balti is a dish introduced in 1977 at Birmingham Curry House. The dish became famous in the 1980s and 1990s. Experts on the dish said they were unhappy with Jaffrey’s remarks about the dish and said it remains important to them.
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- In 1965, she won the Best Actress Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in Shakespeare Walla
- 1993 Received the Taraknath Das Foundation Award from the Columbia University South Asia Institute.
- In 1995, she was named one of America’s “Who’s Who in Food and Beverage” by the James Beard Foundation
- In 2000, she received the Muse Award from the New York Women in Film and Television
- On 11 October 2004, she received a CBE Honorary Award for services to the UK, India and the US
Facts/Trivia
- Madhur Jaffrey eats non-veg food.
- As a student, she often visited her brother’s college and watched plays.
- She was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. She witnessed the partition of India. Her Muslim school friends had broken up. In 1948, after the death of Mahatma Gandhi, she attended prayers at Birla House.
- Jafri said in an interview that after Partition, some Punjabis settled in India. They used to make tandoori chicken, dal makani chicken, butter chicken etc. She further added that she loves the Punjabi style of cooking.
- In an interview, she talked about her cooking skills and said:
No one taught me how to cook. I taught myself how to cook it through my mom’s handwritten recipes. But I must have had a good palate, even though I didn’t know the word “palate” at the time. I could instinctively translate three lines of a recipe into one dish, and through trial and error, I got it just right. “
- In 1956, Said asked Madour’s parents if Said and Madour could get married. Her parents deny this and say his income is not enough. However, after convincing their parents, they got married.
- After Madhur graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1957, she was confused about whether to stay in London or return to India. She began teaching at St. Michael’s Theater in Winooski and also worked in the library of the drama school at Catholic University, where Sayid attended.
- In 1958, after her marriage, she moved to New York. She works there as a tour guide.
- Divorced in 1965 and started an acting career after the divorce. Her ex-husband Saeed took to Facebook to express how much he misses his wife. The message is as follows:
I was 19 and she was 17 when I married Mehrunima. As I grew up, I learned to speak fluent English, wear suits, and develop impeccable manners. But Mehrunima grew up to be the exact opposite of me – a typical housewife. And she is not what I want. All my advice and admonitions can’t change her basic character. I don’t want her anymore. The more I tried to change her, the more distant we became. After 10 years, I divorced her and left her. For about 6-7 months, everything went smoothly. Then I began to realize that my new wife was neither caring nor affectionate. She only cares about her beauty, her ambitions, her needs and desires. Sometimes I miss Melunima’s care and concern for me. But, life goes on and we are two different people living in the same house. “
- Jaffrey won the Silver Bear for Best Actress in a Leading Role in the film Shakespeare Walla. In an interview, she recalled the days of filming and said:
I was still young and I introduced James [Ivory] and Ismail [Merchant] In England we are all friends. The original plan was for me and my ex-husband, Saeed Jaffrey, to return to India and start a touring theater company there. Jim said it would be a great idea for a movie and we would sit in his apartment and discuss it. He then went to India and met the Kendalls, whom he wanted to appear in his film.jabwala [the story and screenplay writer] The character of Manjula was created so that I could be a part of it too. “
- She began dating Sanford Allen in 1965 during the filming of the film. They married in 1969.
- She is known as “the actress who can cook”.
- When she was once asked about the word “foodie” in an interview, she replied:
I think it’s the obsession with taking pictures of food and showing it off.The younger generation really likes the gadgets there [pointing at my phone] and sending what they were doing to all their friends – a new attitude that I didn’t have. I don’t want to tell the world what I’m eating, I just want to enjoy it. “
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education