Talat Mahmood - Acting Career

Acting Career

Talat was considered a handsome man and a good singer, which prompted movie producers to try him as an actor. Talat acted in over a dozen films with top actresses of the time like Nutan, Mala Sinha, Suraiya and others. Later he decided to give up acting to concentrate on singing.

Talat acted in the following Hindi films :

The advent of rock-n-roll in the late 1960s sidelined singers like Talat. As long as he was top box-office draw, the movie producers insisted on including his songs in their movies. Talat's velvety vocals posed a special challenge to the music-composers, most of whom leaned towards the deep baritones of Mohammad Rafi and Mukesh. The resultant demise of his movie career led to the decline of his singing career. At the same time, the social changes and happiness brought about by increasing prosperity in India meant that blue mood ghazals and heart-rending ballads were not popular any more. Talat continued to record good songs, but less in number. His last soundtrack recording, in 1985, is the song "Mere Shareek-e-Safar", a duet sung with Miss Hemlata, from the movie "Wali-e-Azam" composed by Chitragupt and written by Ahmed Wasi.

However, Talat who was the first Indian singer to go on foreign concert tours in 1956 to East Africa found eager fans awaiting his arrival in other foreign countries. Jam packed audience in the United States, the UK, West Indies and other countries awaited his arrival enthusiastically. He performed in famous Royal Albert Hall in London, Madison Square Garden in the States and Jean Pierre Complex in the West Indies. He continued singing in the packed auditoriums until 1991 when he toured Holland. Talat sang about 800 songs in his long career. His songs are still popular among the music lovers as they were in the days these were released.