True story of Bollywood's first scandal shown in Jubilee: How leading actress' affair led to emergence of a superstar

Vikramaditya Motwane’s new web series Jubilee is a nostalgia-filled self-refential take on Bollywood, set in the late-1940s and early-1950s. The drama follows the rise of a new Bollywood superstar Madan Kumar and how circumstances lead to a small-time production house employee becoming a matinee idol. While the plot of Jubilee is largely fictional, it borrows elements from reality and bases its setting on what was arguably Bollywood’s first great scandal.

Mild spoilers for Jubilee ahead:

Without revealing too much of the plot of Jubilee, let us establish how the show borrows from Bollywood’s history. The show begins in Roy Talkies, headed by producer Shrikant Roy and his wife Sumitra Kumari, the number one film star of India. Roy is looking for his new star and he has zeroed in on talented actor Jamshed Khan to take on the mantle. The only problem is that Jamshed and Sumitra have fallen in love and won’t return from Lucknow. Hence, Roy sends his trusted assistant Binod Das to get them. A few twists and turns later, it’s not Jamshed but Binod who ends up leading Roy’s next film and become superstar Madan Kumar.

While Jubilee is set in 1947, the incident from which this part of the story is borrowed took place in 1936. India’s premier film studio Bombay Talkies was headed by Himanshu Rai and his wife Devika Rani, the queen of Indian cinema in that era. During the shoot of their film Jeevan Naiya, Devika and her co-star Najm-ul-Hassan began a relationship with each other and eloped, leaving the film stalled. An angry Himanshu Rai turned to a sound engineer in the studio named Sashadhar Mukherjee, who had a brotherly bond with Devika.

Devika Rani and Najm-ul-Hassan

Eventually, Mukherjee was able to convince the lead pair to return after Devika secured a meaty financial deal for it. Rai accepted Devika, but he did fire his hero Najm-ul-Hassan, replacing him with Sashadhar’s brother-in-law Kumudlal Ganguly, who worked in the studio as a lab assistant. The reluctant Kumudlal became Devika Rani’s hero and adopted the screen name – Ashok Kumar. Thus began the careers of the first superstar of Indian cinema. He would go on to deliver several blockbusters and later transition as a character actor. His brothers Anup and Kishore would follow his footsteps into acting and Kishore would also go on to become one of the greatest singers India has seen.

While the move turned out to be a boon for Kumadlal aka Ashok Kumar, it spelled the end of Najm-ul-Hassan’s promising career. He was fired by Bombay Talkies and struggled to find work in other studios as well. An affair with the top actress of India who was married to a big-shot producer did his reputation no good. Hassan migrated to Pakistan after Partition and worked in a handful of films there, but without much success.

Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani in the 1938 film Nirmala

Devika Rani, on the other hand, continued on as the number one heroine of what would become Bollywood for the better part of the next decade. It was only after the death of Himanshu Rai and the failure of a few films from the studio that she stepped back from films, retiring almost completely after 1945.

Sashadhar Mukherjee, the man who was instrumental in getting Ashok Kumar his big break, set up his own studio – Filmistan Studio – in 1943, followed by Filmalaya in 1950. He not only produced blockbusters like Dil Deke Dekho and Leader but also headed the powerful Mukherjee family. His son Joy Mukherjee was a big star in the 60s while Deb Mukherjee and Shomu Mukherjee were successful filmmakers. Deb’s son Ayan Mukerji is a successful filmmaker and Shomu’s daughter Kajol is regarded as one of the most successful actresses ever (with the younger daughter Tanisha also having been in films).

Two dynasties began in the 1930s after an ill-fated affair between two movie stars. Jubilee fictionalises this incident and uses it to propel a completely different and original tale. But the genesis remains this first scandal of Bollywood that had taken the nation by storm nearly nine decades ago. Jubilee, which stars Aparshakti Khurana, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Sidhant Gupta, Aditi Rao Hydari, Wamiqa Gabbi, and Ram Kapoor began streaming on Prime Video from April 7.