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Veteran star Helen had a difficult childhood to say the least as she and her family fled Myanmar during the Japanese invasion. Her family survived in India as her mother worked as a nurse, but Helen had to quit school to support them financially. She worked as a chorus dancer in films before she bagged a solo dance number, “Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu,” in the 1958 film Howrah Bridge, which made her an overnight sensation.
She came to be known as the Cabaret Queen of Bollywood during the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to her iconic dance numbers. Helen gave dignity and grace to dance performances but never restricted herself to just dancing — she played pivotal roles in several films. One such film was the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Don. Her role as Kamini marked a turning point in the film and also became a defining moment in her own life. Don was where she got to know Salim Khan (co-writer of the film) closely, and two years after its release, the two got married.
However, Don wasn’t the first film where Salim and Helen crossed paths. They had earlier worked together in the 1963 film Kabli Khan, in which Helen played the lead actress while Salim Khan was cast as the villain. “We were shooting for the film Kabli Khan. He was the villain, and I was the heroine. I can’t imagine Salim sahab as a villain,” Helen recalled in the docu-series Angry Young Men.
Despite working closely on the film, the two barely interacted. “We never talked to each other on the set of that film,” she had said.
Destiny, however, had other plans. Years later, they reunited for the shooting of Don, where Helen performed the unforgettable track “Yeh Mera Dil Yaar Ka Diwana.” It was during this schedule that Salim and Helen grew closer. “The first time I really met him was during Don,” Helen said.
In the docu-series, Salim recalled how they would meet every evening after pack-up, sharing conversations and drinks that gradually brought them closer. “After the day’s shooting, Helen would come over, and we would have a drink together, and then she would leave.” When asked how he fell in love with her, he said, “Pyaar toh apne agar kiya hoga toh pata lagega.”
At the time Helen and Salim decided to get married, Salim Khan was already married to Salma Khan and was a father to four children. This weighed heavily on Helen, as she admitted in an old Filmfare interview. “The fact that Salim was a married man did disturb me and I did feel guilty in the beginning. Something about Salim set him apart from the rest of the industry men. I respected him tremendously as he tried to help me out without trying to exploit me,” she said.
When Salim disclosed his relationship with Helen, there was resistance from his children — Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Sohail Khan and Alvira Khan. Referring to that phase, Salim said, “As kids they had their hostility. But they reacted the way their mother did. As I told you very honestly, it wasn’t as if Salma accepted the relationship happily straightaway and thanked me for it or said, you deserve an Oscar for it. So at that time, there was hostility from the children.”
In the docu-series, Salim shared how he reasoned with his children and asked them to treat Helen with respect. “I sat all the kids down and discussed it with them. I told them, ‘You won’t understand it now, but you will get it when you’re older. I am in love with Helen aunty, and I know you can’t love her as much as you love your mother, but I want the same respect for her.’”
Though the Khans eventually became a close and united family, the early days of acceptance were far from easy. In a 1990 Filmfare interview, Salman — who was around 10 when his father was deciding to marry Helen — spoke about how difficult it was to watch his mother get hurt. “I’m a mama’s boy. I can’t bear to see her unhappy. She was very hurt when my father married again, I’d hate it when she’d wait up for him to come home,” he had said.
Salman admitted that things improved after Salma accepted Salim’s marriage to Helen, and after Salim reassured his children that nothing would change in his love for their mother. “Dad explained to us that he still loved mom and that he’ll always be around. I was about 10 at that time and it took us quite some time to really accept Helen aunty. Today she’s a part of our family. Our whole family is like a closed fist, each one of us knows that if any one of us needs the other at any stage, we’ll be there.”
In the docu-series, Arbaaz Khan said that despite her personal struggles, Salma never poisoned the children’s minds. “My mother never influenced us to think or say anything against our father. She had her troubles, but she never influenced us to think, ‘Your dad is like this,’ or, ‘This is what he is doing.’ Never. We still call her (Helen) aunty because she was Helen aunty at that time. Though we treat her as a mother, we call her Helen aunty. She is part of our lives. More than us, my mom ensures that she is part of everything.”
Salma and Salim recently celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary, and Helen was a part of the celebrations.
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