Decades before cancel culture, Madhubala survived an orchestrated smear campaign with a loaded gun and armed guards | Bollywood News
In the last few years, the Indian film going audience has become increasingly privy to the mechanics of the PR-run activities that are often used to put a star on a pedestal, and sometimes such shenanigans are blatantly obvious when the target is to malign a star’s image. Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Varun Dhawan, Ranveer Singh, Shah Rukh Khan, and many others have been on the receiving end of such campaigns, and while the audience might think that this is a new form of marketing, these kinds of campaigns, in one form or another, have been a part of the film industry since the 1940s. And one of the first stars who suffered because of this was Madhubala. Celebrated as one of the most beautiful female actors of her time, Madhubala started working in the movies as a child actor. At 14, she starred in her first film, Neel Kamal, as a leading heroine, opposite a 24-year-old Raj Kapoor. She went on to star in 66 films as a leading lady and mesmerised the viewers …
