Patience Cooper

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Patience Cooper

Patience Cooper (1905–1983) was an Indian film actress. An Anglo-Indian from Calcutta (in West Bengal), Cooper had a successful career in both silent and sound films.

1 Stage career
2 Film Career
3 Filmography
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Stage career

Cooper started out as a dancer in Bandmann's Musical Comedy, a Eurasian troupe. She later joined Jamsetji Framji Madan's Corinithian Stage Company (a theatre company which later became Madan Theatres Limited, a company involved in production, distribution and exhibition of films in India) as an actress.

[edit] Film Career

Starting with her first film, Vishnuavtar (Incarnations of Vishnu) in 1921, Cooper acted in over 40 films, until she retired in 1944 after acting in her last film, Iraada (Intent). Cooper was often cast in the role of a sexually troubled but innocent woman, always at the centre of moral dilemmas, often caused by the men in her lives. Cooper was the first actor in Indian films to play double roles. She played the role of two sisters in Patni Pratap (1923) and the role of a mother and daughter in Kashmiri Sundari (Beauty of Kashmir) (1924).

The low number of women, especially Hindus, in the film industry during the 1920s (due to conservative attitudes) meant Parsi and Anglo-Indian actresses, like Cooper, were in demand. Her distinctively Anglo-Indian features, like dark eyes, sharp features, ebony hair and light skin tone, allowed technicians to experiment with the imported technique of eye-level lighting and achieve the Hollywood look, an appearance similar to Hollywood stars of the silent era. Her appearance in a string of successful films has led her to being called the first ever female Indian film star.