Short Biography
Fearless Nadia was born on 08-01-1908 in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. She was an Australian-Indian Film Actress & Stunt Performer.
Fearless Nadia Complete Bio & Career
Nadia came to India at the age of five, and while growing up learned many skills such as horseback riding, hunting, fishing and shooting during her stay in the North-West Frontier Province. She starred in movies like Desh Deepak and Noor-e-Yaman before getting her big break in Hunterwali.
From a young age, she wanted to be a singer and dancer and learned Scottish dances from her father and Greek songs from her mother. She went on to sing in church choirs in school but even as a young girl, she was different. While her classmates played with fluffy soft toys, she spent most of her time with a pony that became her best friend. When her father passed away during World War I, Mary moved back with her mother to Bombay. Here, she joined a ballet dance school run by Madame Astrova, a Russian dancer, who recognized the young girl’s innate talent, and selected her to be part of her traveling troupe.
Nadia left her job at the Zarco Circus and returned to full-time dancing, this time performing to Bollywood songs. Eruch Kanga, a cinema owner from Lahore, spotted her in a performance and suggested her name to J. B. H. Wadia and Homi Wadia, the brothers who owned a major production house called Wadia Movietone. She was asked to learn Hindi and given a small role in two of their upcoming movies, Desh Deepak and Noor-e-Yaman. Her cameos as a slave girl in the former and as a princess in the latter were well-liked by the audience. Then came Hunterwali and her life changed after that. Over the next decade, Nadia went on to star in over 50 films, performing her own stunts in every single one of them. From swinging from the chandelier and jumping off cliffs to fighting atop a speeding train and befriending lions, she did it all with an ease even men found difficult to achieve. Her fierce yell at wild animals, bandits, and bad boys in general, as she cycled down the road on her way to new adventures, became her signature.
Fearless Nadia will always be remembered as the original Stunt Queen of India.
