Madhubala would’ve turned 92 today. Her loss has been felt by many over the past 55 years, most of all by her youngest sister, Madhur Bhushan. Last year, Bhushan, along with Sony Pictures International Productions, announced a biopic on the late actor. The anticipation around the project is understandable considering her legacy has lived on for decades. “People talk about her beauty, but she was a woman of incredible warmth and courage, a dedicated artiste, and for us, she was almost like a mother,” recalls Bhushan. She reiterates that there can’t be another Madhubala, purely because of her courage. The actor—who ruled Bollywood through the 1950s and early ’60s, featuring in Mr & Mrs 55 (1955), Howrah Bridge (1958), and Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958)—passed away of a congenital heart condition at 36. “Her doctors in London told her she’d live for one more year. But she came back and worked. It’s only because of her spirit that she lived for eight years after that.”

Madhubala