Nasir Hussain

Biography

Mohammad Nasir Hussain Khan (16 November 1926 — 13 March 2002), better known as Nasir Hussain, was an Indian film producer, director, and screenwriter. With a career spanning decades, Hussain has been credited as a major trendsetter in the history of Hindi cinema.

For example, he directed Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973), which created the Hindi language masala film genre that defined Hindi cinema in the 1970s and 1980s, and he wrote and produced Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), which set the Hindi language musical romance template that defined Hindi cinema in the 1990s.

Akshay Manwani wrote a book on Hussain's cinema titled Music, Masti, Modernity: The Cinema of Nasir Husain.

Hussain first worked with Qamar Jalalabadi when he joined Filmistan as a writer in 1948. The famous films he wrote for Filmistan include Anarkali (1953), Munimji (1955), and Paying Guest (1957).

Filmistan was the breakaway studio from Bombay Talkies; it used mid-budget formula productions and sold on star value and music. Sashadhar Mukherjee was a part of the breakaway team, and he gave Hussain Tumsa Nahin Dekha to direct. The film made star of Shammi Kapoor.

Kapoor and Hussain made another hit, Dil Deke Dekho (1959), for Filmalaya, the breakaway group of Filmistan. The film introduced Asha Parekh, who would be the lead in all of Hussain's films until Caravan (1971).

He was also in a long romantic relationship with her, but it ended because he was already a married man with two children, and Parekh didn't want to be labeled a homewrecker. Hussain's wife was Margaret Francina Lewis, an assistant choreographer he met at Filmistan.

They married and then she changed her name to Ayesha Khan. She worked as an assistant choreographer on some of his productions. He outlived his wife.