Colin Pal (25 December 1923 – 30 August 2005) was a Hindi film actor, technician, journalist, and publicist on 175

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

films. He was the son of producer

Niranjan Pal Niranjan Pal (17 August 1889 – 9 November 1959) was an Indian playwright, screenwriter, and director in the Indian film industry in the silent and early talkie days. He was a close associate of Himanshu Rai and Franz Osten, with whom he was a ...

and the grandson of Indian independence movement activist

Bipin Chandra Pal Bipin Chandra Pal ( ; 7 November 1858 – 20 May 1932) was an Indian nationalist, writer, orator, social reformer and freedom fighter. He was one third of the " Lal Bal Pal" triumvirate. He was one of the main architects of the Swadeshi move ...

. Pal was born in London to an English mother, Lily Bell, and spent his early years in

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...

before moving to Bombay in 1929. Pal joined '' Filmistan Studios'' in May 1943 as an apprentice after working alongside his father at

Bombay Talkies Bombay Talkies was a movie studio founded in 1934. During its period of operation, Bombay Talkies produced 40 movies in Malad, a suburb of the Indian city of Bombay. The studio was established in 1934 by Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani. Afte ...

. He became the assistant director to P.L. Santoshi. While working with Filmistan, he also portrayed Netaji Subashchandra Bose in ''Samaadhi'' (1949). In 1951 he appeared in

Bimal Roy Bimal Roy (12 July 1909 – 7 January 1966) was an Indian film director. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films such as , '' Parineeta'', ''Biraj Bahu'', '' Devdas'', '' Madhumati'', '' Sujata'', '' Parakh'' and '' Ba ...

's '' Parineeta'' and ''

Naukri ''Naukri'' () is a 1978 Bollywood film directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. It was critically acclaimed and became an unexpected flop at the box office. However over the years, the film has been appreciated by the audiences in its screening in tel ...

''. He later directed '' Shrimatijee'', ''Naina'', and '' Suhag Sindoor'' for Munshi productions. Pal spent most of his career as a publicist for mainstream Hindi films but also wrote for several trade magazines. He frequently collaborated with film historians on projects around the early talkie studios in Bombay. He contributed to the historical discussion on the use of simple Hindustani in early Hindi cinema instead of the more literary language, which is common in other vernacular cinema including Tamil and Bengali. According to

Bhagwan Das Garga Bhagwan Das Garga (14 November 1924 – 18 July 2011), also known as B. D. Garga, was an Indian documentary filmmaker and film historian. Life Garga grew up in Lahore and developed an interest in photography as a teenager. He published som ...

Pal argued that this was driven by the early screenwriters and producers in Bombay being transplants from the silent era, who were not Hindi speakers themselves, and consequently insisted on dialogue that was very straightforward contemporary language. He authored the book ''Shooting Stars'' which described the eccentricities of the cinema process. His reworking of his father's autobiography ''Aye Jibon: Such is life'' won a National Award from the Indian government in 2001. Pal died on 28 August 2005 after a prolonged illness in

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

at the age of 83. His son, Deep Pal, was a pioneer of

Steadicam Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizer mounts for motion picture cameras invented by Garrett Brown and introduced in 1975 by Cinema Products Corporation. The Steadicam brand was acquired by Tiffen in 2000. It was designed to isolate the ...

camerawork in India.

Works

* ''Shooting Stars'', Screen World Pub, .''Shooting Stars''
* ''Aye Jibon: Such is life''

References

External links

* 1923 births 2005 deaths Male actors in Hindi cinema Brahmos Bengali people 20th-century Indian male actors British emigrants to India {{India-film-bio-stub