Did you know that there are many Music and Hollywood starlets who are actually born in India and made it big after migrating to foreign lands?

Take a look:

Engelbert Humperdinck

Iconic crooner Engelbert Humperdinck famous for his hits like Spanish Eyes and The Last Waltz was born Arnold George Dorsey in Chennai, India to a British father and Anglo-Indian mother. His family immigrated to Leicester, England when he was just 10 years old where he eventually changed his name to Engelbert Humperdinck.

Humperdinck was born on the 2 ^nd of May, 1936 as Arnold George Dorsey in Madras (now Chennai), India. His parents were Mervyn Dorsey, a Scottish Army engineer, and Olive, who was from south India. Leaving school at 15, he changed his name to “Gerry Dorsey” and soon started performing small gigs in men’s clubs traveling even to Germany. Life was tough for Engelbert who recalls eating just porridge, minced meat, and mashed potatoes for meals. It was his manager (incidentally the same one who managed Tom Jones) who decided on drastic measures and reinvented the singer giving him the new name of Engelbert Humperdinck. 

One thing good about Engelbert is his humbleness. At a concert years ago at the NCPA, he admitted being a boy from Madras and not forgetting his roots.

Cliff Richard

Cliff Richard was born Harry Webb in Lucknow, India in 1940 to Anglo parents. He lived in a small house in Hazratganj, Lucknow where his mother worked as a dormitory matron in La Martiniere School. The family moved and lived in Kolkata till immigrating to London in 1948.Today, he is known as “Sir Cliff Richard,” but there was a time when Cliff was a boy called “Harry Roger Webb” who lived on a small street in Maqbara near the busy shopping district of Hazratganj in Lucknow, India. Born in 1940 at the King George Hospital, Victoria Street, in Lucknow, Richard’s mother Dorothy worked as a matron in the prestigious La Martiniere School. His father, Englishman Roger Oscar Webb, worked in the Indian Railways.

From Lucknow, the family moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata), India and lived on Dobson Road in Howrah district near Calcutta. He attended St Thomas School and even sang for the school choir. When India gained independence in 1947, the family was traumatized by the ensuing riots and left for England in 1948. Richards was eight at the time. From luxury in India to a small and humble accommodation in England, Richard took to music and formed his first commercial band in 1958 simultaneously changing his name and calling his group Cliff Richard and the Drifters. 

Freddie Mercury

Does Freddie Mercury need any introduction? Perhaps not, but as Farrokh Balsara, he certainly does. As one of the most iconic rock stars of the 20 ^th century, Freddie Mercury was once a lovable little border at St Peter’s boarding school in Panchgani near Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The film Bohemian Rhapsody was based on his life and has gone to packed houses.

Mercury was a Parsi and it was in Panchagni where he cultivated his love for music and formed his first band The Heretics. In school he was nicknamed Freddie.

Born in 1946 to a Parsi parents Bomi and Jer Balsara in Zanzibar, little Farrokh was moved to India.  The family moved to England in 1963, and seven years later, he would become “Freddie Mercury” the lead singer of Queen that propelled him to superstardom. 

Freida Pinto

Everyone who has watched Slumdog Millionaire would recognize the name and of course her long affair with her co star Dev Patel. Freida Selena Pinto was born and raised in a middle class family from Malad, Mumbai, India to a south Indian Catholic family. Her mother worked as a school principal while her father was a senior branch manager for the Bank of Baroda. Pinto excelled in school and worked as a model until her big break in Slumdog Millionaire.

Pinto was immersed in her efforts to make it big in the modeling world of Mumbai, India; little did she know that she would one day be selected for something really big. Freida was born on the 18 ^th of October 1984 and raised in Mumbai India. She studied at St Xavier’s College and after graduation pursued a career in modeling through the Elite Model Management Company. 

Ben Kingsley

Krishna Pandit Bhanji, a name typically given to a Gujarati in India was actually the real name of Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley of ‘Gandhi’ fame. He is of Indian origin and was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in Snainton, Scarborough, England to an English mother and Gujrati father Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji. Throughout his college years, he was obsessed with theater.

Kingsley’s iconic performance of the Father of the Nation, in Richard Attenborough’s Academy Award-winning movie inspired millions around the globe and people came to know more about Mahatma Gandhi.

Kingsley may have changed his name to a more acceptable one in Hollywood, but he was born as Born in 1943 in Scarborough, England, Kingsley’s mother was Anna Lyna Mary, an English actress and model, while his father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, a doctor, was of Indian descent but born in Kenya. Kingsley was fascinated with theater and devoted his life and career to stage and film. He changed his name around 1977 when he acted in Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’sDream’.

Vivien Leigh

Vivien Leigh ruled Hollywood in the forties. She has won two Oscars, one for her stellar performance as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) opposite Clark Gable and as Francis Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Even today, many a movie fan will know her name, yet not many know that she has her roots in India.

Vivien was born Vivian Mary Hartley on the 5 ^th of November, 1913 in the beautiful hill station of Darjeeling in India. Her father, Richard Hartley, was Scottish, while her mother, Gertrude Mary Frances, was of mixed heritage whose father was a Parsi named Michael John Yackjee. Vivien studied in Loreto Convent in Darjeeling until the age of six after which her family sent her to England where she was admitted into the Sacred Heart Convent in Roehampton, in southwest London. It was there that she met Maureen Sullivan, another iconic actress, who encouraged her interest to be in films. Recognizing her desire to be an actress, her father enrolled her in London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Erick Avari

Erick Avari famous for his roles in The Mummy , Independence Day and Stargate, was born Naruman Eruch Avari in Darjeeling, India to Parsi parents who were influential in the region and owned the town’s only two cinema halls, Rink and Capital. Erick was born Naruman Eruch Avari in 1952 in Darjeeling. He was never really a part of his illustrious business family having spent his years in European boarding schools and subsequently attending a university in the US. He graduated to acting from theater and has been seen in several Hollywood films such as The Mummy, Independence Day and Daredevil.

Karen David

Karen Shenaz David belongs to one of the Khasi tribes in India having being born in 1979 in Shillong, Meghalaya, India to a Khasi-Jewish father and an Indo-Chinese mother. She was raised in Canada and subsequently in London where she took up acting as a career. David studied at the Guildford School of Acting and was one of the original members of the West End Musical Mamma Mia! 

Karen David is best known for her role as Layla in the Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior and Princess Jasmine in the American TV series Once Upon A Time. She was born in Shillong in the North East. Her father is a Khasi-Jew while her mother is half Indian and half Chinese.

Merle Oberon

Who could have guessed this ethereal beauty who was famous for playing Cathy in Wuthering Heights(1939) opposite Laurence Olivier was a simple, Anglo-Indian girl who worked as a telephone operator in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in India. Although an accomplished actress who won the role of Cathy from Vivien Leigh, Oberon has never acknowledged her Indian roots. She has always claimed she was born in Tasmania, Australia, a bluff that fell through when records proved who she really was and where she came from.

She was born Esthel Merle Obrien Thompson in Mumbai, India to British-Eurasian parents. She grew up in Kolkata where she also performed at the famed nightclub Firpo’s. After her father died, Oberon and her mother moved to England when she was 17 where she worked in clubs under the name “Queenie O’Brien.” It was then that she met the acclaimed director and her future husband, Alexander Kordam, who introduced her to Hollywood. She finally adopted her new name, Merle Oberon

Collated by Verus Ferreira