Geeta Dutt (born Geeta Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri; 23 November 1930 – 20 July 1972)[3] was an Indian classical and playback singer. She found particular prominence as a playback singer in Hindi cinema and Bengali cinema and is considered as one of the best playback singers of all time in Hindi films.[4] She also sang many modern Bengali songs in the non-film genre.
Early life
Geeta Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri was one of 10 children born to a wealthy zamindar family in a village named Idilpur, Madaripur Subdivision under Faridpur district in Bengal, British India presently under Gosairhat Upazila of Shariatpur District, Bangladesh. Her family moved to Calcutta and Assam in the early 1940s, leaving behind their land and properties. In 1942, her parents moved to an apartment in Bombay. Geeta was twelve and continued her schooling at the Bengali High School.[3]
Singing career
2016 postcard and stamp featuring Geeta Dutt from the series Legendary Singers of India
K. Hanuman Prasad took Geeta under his patronage, trained and groomed her in singing and later launched her into singing for movies. In 1946, she got the first break with an opportunity to sing in the mythological film Bhakta Prahlad for which Prasad was the music director. She was given two lines to sing for two songs. She was sixteen at that time.
Personal life
During Geeta's recording of songs for the movie Baazi, she met its young up-and-coming director, Guru Dutt. Their romance culminated in marriage on 26 May 1953. Together they had three children: Tarun (1954–1985), Arun (1956–2014) and Nina (b. 1964).
She also cut a number non-film discs, singing to the tune of notable music directors like Sudhin Dasgupta and Anal Chatterjee.
In 1957, Guru Dutt launched the film Gauri with Geeta Dutt as its singing star. It was to be India's first movie in cinemascope but the project was shelved after just a few days of the shooting. By then, Guru Dutt had got romantically involved with Waheeda Rehman and Geeta had taken to drinking. The break up of their marriage affected Geeta's singing career[citation needed].
In 1964, Guru Dutt died from a combination of alcohol and an overdose of sleeping pills. (His death was widely perceived as a suicide following two earlier attempts).[5] This shattered Geeta, who then suffered a serious nervous breakdown and ran into financial problems[citation needed]. She tried to resume her singing career, cutting discs at Durgā Pujā and giving stage shows. She performed a leading role in a Bengali movie, Badhu Baran (1967), and sang admirably in Anubhav (1971), to the music of Kanu Roy. Geeta Dutt's final performance was for Midnight in 1972 (unreleased) Two duets, one of which was with Talat Mahmood.
Death
Geeta Dutt died on 20 July 1972 due to cirrhosis of liver at the age of 41 in Mumbai, Maharashtra. She was survived by her three children and siblings.
She has sung over 1417 songs in Hindi films. In addition, she has sung songs in many other Indian languages including Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Maithili, Bhojpuri and Punjabi. She has sung in Nepali evergreen movie Maitighar.[6]
