Producing Bombay Stardom: Celebrities in J. H. Thakker’s Studio

Long before audiences ever encounter a film, they are already seeing and forming impressions of its stars. How did the star come to be consolidated as an icon of cinema, coming in to stand for its spectacular promises and fantasies of excess? And what role did photographic studios play in it?

The cinema screen has always held a magnetic allure, yet cinema has never been confined to it. Rather, it is supported by a rich visual ecosystem comprising film magazines, posters, studio portraits, advertisements, showreels, paparazzi images, and, in the present moment, the ever-expanding social media presence of stars. Together, these forms operate as an extended infrastructure that enables circulation, visibility, publicity, professional networking, and the cultivation of fan attachment. With technological advancements, this visual culture has grown increasingly layered, encompassing reels, short-form videos, award ceremonies, public events, and evolving modes of celebrity performance.

In contrast, during the early decades of Hindi cinema when technological resources and industrial networks were comparatively limited, the production of star images relied on more intimate, material, and meticulously staged practices. Studio photography, in particular, emerged as a vital site for crafting, refining, and testing cinematic identities. During the golden age of Hindi cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, J. H. Thakker’s ‘India Photo Studio’ played a significant role in shaping the stardom and screen presence of many aspiring actors and actresses. This essay examines Thakker’s photographic archive as an industrial apparatus in its own right—one in which aspiration, labour, and visibility intersect to produce a distinctive grammar of stardom that continues to resonate today.

Thakker’s photographs transport us to an era when Bombay cinema’s actors and actresses functioned as charismatic figures of popular imagination and public desire. These carefully choreographed and highly stylised images evolved into a distinct genre of cinematic media, where the visual grammar of stardom and celebrity was both shaped and circulated across multiple channels. Portraits of emerging stars such as Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, Nargis, Manoj Kumar, Farida Jalal, Shashi Kapoor, and Saira Banu were produced in his studio as silver gelatin prints, featuring elaborate costumes, carefully arranged props, and dramatic poses. Through the use of high-contrast lighting and meticulously composed frames, Thakker infused his photographs with a striking sense of drama, crafting a powerful and memorable visual encounter.

In the image above, a sepia-toned portrait of Madhubala has been presented in traditional South Asian attire, her gaze directed subtly toward the camera with an air of mystery and quiet allure. Thakker employs high-contrast lighting to accentuate her facial features, while simultaneously evoking the luminous glamour associated with the golden age of Indian cinematography. On the reverse side of the photograph, a handwritten inscription records studio details along with specific instructions regarding its use. Such annotations offer valuable insight into the circulation of these images, as well as the emerging concerns around authorship, credit, and copyright.

In another photograph, the iconic on-screen pair of Raj Kapoor and Nargis are captured in an intimate embrace, with Nargis’s arms wrapped around Raj Kapoor, whose expression conveys a sense of warmth and ease. The delicate interplay of light across their faces, combined with a soft backlight that produces a halo-like effect, elevates the pair into an almost ethereal symbol of romantic idealism—one shaped by their celebrated collaborations in films such as Barsaat (1949), Awaara (1951), Shree 420 (1955), Aah (1953), and Chori Chori (1956).

A similar visual motif appears in another image featuring Shammi Kapoor and Nutan, where the two are depicted in a close embrace. Nutan, adorned in elaborate jewellery, embodies a refined elegance, while the composition continues Thakker’s exploration of intimacy, stylisation, and the visual construction of romantic stardom.

In contrast, several photographs capture entirely different emotional registers: those of anger, violence, and anguish. One striking image presents Dilip Kumar locked in a moment of intense struggle, a hand gripping his neck as he appears drenched in sweat, his face contorted with rage. Another depicts Manoj Kumar slumped over a table, gazing blankly in a state of visible disdain, a bottle close at hand as he drinks—an image that evokes exhaustion, disillusionment, and inner turmoil.

These photographs echo the conventions of an expressionist photographic style, marked by a command over techniques such as chiaroscuro that sculpt the body through light and shadow, along with the use of diffused elements, like smoke from oil lamps, to produce richly textured backgrounds. By staging a wide spectrum of emotions within the studio, Thakker appears to encode his subjects within thematic frameworks of masculinity, femininity, eroticism, and respectability. In doing so, he translates the central emotional intensity and narrative pathos of Hindi cinema into the still, yet evocative, language of photography.

For emerging actors like Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, and Raj Kapoor, a photography session at India Art Studio was like a rite of passage, as these photos affirmed their status as ‘icons’. The studio was located near major film studios like Rooptara and Shree Sound, and acted as a key site of cultural convergence, where the aspirational labour of film artists intersected with several industrial functions of production, direction and advertisement. Thakker played a significant role in professionalising the visual grammar of the Indian film industry, moving it away from flat, theatrical documentation toward a more stylised, carefully composed, and meaning-rich expressionist mode of photography.

Beyond their immediate function as publicity material, Thakker’s studio portraits assume the status of a media infrastructure that mediates the emotional and cultural history of Hindi cinema, while also acquiring value as cherished cinephilic memorabilia. Their appeal is enduring; these are images one might wish to live with, to hang on a wall and return to, reliving a sense of nostalgia through repeated viewing. In this sense, their material qualities, such as the visible grain, tonal contrasts, surface imperfections, and handwritten inscriptions on the reverse, foreground photography not simply as representation, but as a tactile repository of historical memory. Thakker’s archive thus mobilises an affective archaeology of stardom, where emotions such as longing, romance, desire, aspiration, and melancholy circulate through still images.

In the contemporary digital moment, where technologies of celebrity image production have expanded exponentially, driven by endless reproducibility and algorithmic circulation, Thakker’s portraits acquire renewed relevance. Their composed elegance and meticulous detailing stand as an important prefiguration of today’s accelerated image flows. Exhibiting these photographs and reintroducing them to public view reactivates an earlier economy of cinematic visibility, opening up new ways of engaging with the nostalgic pleasures of Hindi cinephilia. At the same time, such images offer a critical vantage point from which to reflect on the shifting regimes of stardom in the present.