Kamlabai Gokhale - Actress (Kannada, Hindi)

 

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Monday 08, September 2025, 18:16.

Portrait of Gokhale

About:

Kamalabai Gokhale: Born c. 1900, Mumbai, 

Died 17 May 1997 (aged 96–97), Pune, Maharashtra, India

Occupation Actress

Years active 1913–1980

Spouse Raghunathrao Gokhale

Children 3, including Chandrakant Gokhale

Parent Durgabai Kamat (mother)

Introduction:

Kamlabai Gokhale (also known as Kamlabai Kamath; c. 1900 – 17 May 1997) was one of the first actresses in Indian cinema, along with her mother Durgabai Kamat.

Personal life:

The daughter of Durgabai Kamat and Anand Nanoskar, a professor of history in Bombay. She married Raghunathrao Gokhale and had three children, Chandrakant Gokhale, Lalji Gokhale and Suryakant Gokhale. Chandrakant Gokhale is the father of Vikram Gokhale (occasionally credited as Vikram Gokhle), a well-known Indian film, television and stage actor. Lalji Gokhale and Suryakant Gokhale were acclaimed tabala maestros. Kamlabai was 25 when she became a widow, pregnant with her third child.

Career:

Her first stage appearance was at the age of four. Around 1912 or 1913, Dadasaheb Phalke, the pioneering film-maker of India, was casting for his film Mohini Bhasmasur and he chose Kamlabai for the lead. Her mother played the role of Parvati. Phalke had been forced to use a young male cook, Salunke, to play the female lead in his earlier film, Raja Harishchandra. By the time she was 15, Kamlabai had become a celebrity.

The following year she married Raghunathrao Gokhale. He had been with the Kirloskar Natak Company where he usually performed female roles. However, his voice was breaking, so he moved to his brother's company, which was the same one where Kamlabai and her mother were employed. The young couple was cast as the new lead pair of the company. In the 1930s, Kamlabai worked under Veer Savarkar in the play Ushaap, which focussed on the plight of Harijans. Kamalabai worked in around 35 movies. Her last film was Gehrayee (1980).

Filmography:

1. Silent Movies:

Year Title Role Notes

VIDEO: Nee Emma Jeeva | Ohileshwara |Master Anand | Kumari Kamala | Kannada Video Song

1913 Mohini Bhasmasur Mohini

2.Talkie Movies:

Year Title Role Notes

1931 Devi Devayani Sharmistha Miss Kamala

1932 Sheil Bala

1932 Niti Vijay

1932 Char Chakram

1932 Bhutio Mahal

1933 Rajrani Meera

1933 Mirza Sahiban

1933 Lal-e-Yaman Lalarukh

1933 Krishna Sudama

1933 Chandrahasa

1933 Bhool Bhulaiyan

1933 Bhola Shikar

1933 Aurat Ka Dil

1934 Gunsundari Sushila

1934 Ambarish

1934 Afghan Abla

1935 Bikhare Moti

1935 Barrister’s Wife

1936 Prabhu Ka Pyara

1936 Be Kharab Jan

1936 Aakhri Galti

1938 Street Singer (as Miss Kamala)

1938 Chabukwali

1939 Garib Ka Lal

1942 Basant

1944 Stunt King

1946 Sona Chandi

1946 Haqdar

1949 Navajeevanam Kamala

1952 Aladdin Aur Jadui Chirag

1954 Nastik Kamla

1962 Private Detective

1967 Balyakalasakhi

1971 Hulchul

1972 Ek Nazar

1980 Gehrayee

Reference:

Durgabai Kamat: The First Female Actor In Indian Cinema - Shraddha Varma

Circa 1913 - A time when severe social restrictions were imposed on women in the country. Cinema was about to break into India, theatre was thriving - but it was a space reserved exclusively for men. For women to be a part of theatre and cinema was considered a taboo, the lowest of low professions. Due to this, no woman, from homemakers to prostitutes, wanted to be a part of it. It's around this time, Dadasaheb Phalke, popularly known as the father of Indian cinema, was compelled to cast a male actor Anna Salunke as the heroine in his first (and India's first) film Raja Harishchandra. But, Dadasaheb was not one of those who gave up easily. It was this determination of his that helped him find not one but two female actresses for his second film, Mohini Bhasmasur. He found a single mother Durgabai Kamat and her daughter Kamlabai Gokhale. While Durgabai made history being the first female actress of Indian cinema, her daughter consequently became the first female child actress in the industry. Largely forgotten today, Durgabai's first ever movie role was that of goddess Parvati, the wife of Lord Shiva.
Unfortunately, despite her legacy, very little is known about the artist's early life. From an interview with her daughter, we know that she was reportedly born in 1879 and studied up to the seventh standard - which then was the equivalent of today's 10th standard. Durgabai was married to Anand Nanoskar, a history teacher at the JJ School of Arts in Mumbai. Their marriage didn't work out and the two separated in 1903. After they parted ways, she decided to raise her then three-year-old daughter Kamlabai on her own, an incredibly brave decision for the time.
The First Female Actor In Indian Cinema:
However, life after separation wasn't easy for Durgabai. She was desperate to find a job and earn a living to support her daughter. In society then, there was very little a single woman, worse, a single mother, could do - she could become a domestic help, a prostitute or an actress. She chose the supposedly dissolute profession of acting, changing Indian cinema forever. Already looked down on for being a single mother, her ostracization was complete when she decided to become an actor - she was promptly disowned by her Brahmin community. She joined a travelling theatre company, because of which her daughter and she lived a nomadic life. Kamalabai couldn't go to school, since the mother-daughter duo were never in one place long enough, so Durgabai took it upon herself to homeschool her. got to live a nomadic life. When she took up Dadasaheb Phalke's offer, little did Durgabai know that she was not only making history but also paving the way for other women in Indian cinema.
Interestingly though, Durgabai faced the fiercest threats to her career not from other women, but from men in the profession, not very different from cinema today. Said her daughter in an interview, "In those days, men played the female roles. So the fiercest opposition to my mother and me came from these men-we were their first natural enemies. Some companies just would not hire women as a rule..." However, they persevered and even though Durgabai remains largely forgotten (despite living to the ripe old age of 117, reportedly), Kamlabai went on to become a popular film actress. Her movie career spanned over 70 years and her last film was Gehrayee in 1980.
While Bollywood actresses are superstars today, it would do them well to recognise the contribution of these incredible women, who forged their profession in fire and fury. The women of Bollywood owe it to them to take this glorious legacy forward.

END.

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