18 Facts About Talat Mahmood

Talat Mahmood was an Indian playback singer who is considered as one of the greatest and most popular Indian male film song and ghazal singers.

Talat Mahmood received the Padma Bhushan award in 1992, in recognition of his artistic contributions in the spheres of cinematic and ghazal music.

Talat Mahmood was particularly famous for singing soft and sombre ghazals in his quivering and silky voice.

Talat Mahmood had to choose between working in films and continue living at home.

Talat Mahmood began his singing career at the age of 16 in 1939, when he began singing the Ghazals of Daag, Mir, Jigar etc.

Talat Mahmood's voice had a quality distinct from all the other singers.

Talat Mahmood made cameo appearances and starred in about 16 films, for both the Calcutta and Bombay Film Industry.

In 1949, Talat Mahmood moved to Bombay, to sing for the Hindi film industry.

Talat Mahmood acted in over a dozen films with actresses of the time like Nutan, Mala Sinha, Suraiya and others.

Talat Mahmood continued to record good songs, but less in number.

However, Talat Mahmood who was one of the first Indian singer to go on foreign concert tours in 1956 to East Africa, United States, the UK, West Indies.

Talat Mahmood performed in Royal Albert Hall in London, Madison Square Garden in the United States and in the West Indies.

Talat Mahmood continued singing until 1991, when he toured the Netherlands.

Talat Mahmood married a Bengali Christian girl from Calcutta, who acted in films and was a great fan of his, Latika Mullick, later named Nasreen, on 20 February 1951 and had two children Khalid born in 1953 and Sabina born in 1959.

People, who were close to Talat Mahmood, describe his nature as a quiet one.

Music directors, who worked with him, claimed that while listening to him, one would develop the feeling that Talat Mahmood was a soft-hearted man.

Talat Mahmood was always well-dressed: his shoes shining and his trousers perfectly creased.

Talat Mahmood sang approximately 750 songs in 12 languages spread over 4 decades spanning between the 1940s and 1980s.