Happy birthday Helen: Let’s take a look back at her love story with Salim Khan
Helen, the 1950s and 1960s dancing diva and well-known vamp in films, turned a year older today. Helen fell in love with Salim Khan and married him in an unusual way. Here’s a look back at their love life on her birthday.
Salim was a married man with children when he married actress Helen in 1980. He was 45 and she was 42, not the most traditional age for a couple to marry.
But theirs was a relationship that had stood the test of time. Marriage simply formalized it and granted them society’s approval.
Salim, who was born in 1935, moved to Mumbai (then Bombay) at the age of 23 to pursue a career as an actor. In 1964, he married Sushila Charak, whom he had courted for several years, after a few years in the city. Salman was born a year later. However, it was around this time that he met and worked with Helen, who was famous in Bollywood films during the 1950s and 1960s for her vamp roles and dances. They fell in love during their friendship, but marriage came much later. In addition, Helen was married to Prem Narayan Arora for much of this time, whom she divorced in 1974.
So, what was it about Salim that drew her in? In an interview with journalist Shashi Balinga, she revealed that, out of all the people in the industry, he was the only one who never tried to take advantage of her. Pinkvilla quoted her as saying: “Something about Salim set him apart from rest of the industry men. I respected him tremendously as he tried to help me out without trying to exploit me.”
Talking about when and how he fell in love with her, Salim Khan said, “I won’t be able to say when exactly I fell in love with her or decided to marry her. After seeing her for quite a long time we decided to honour our relationship. We got married in 1980.”
And how easy was it to settle down with a married man? Helen admitted that she felt guilty seeing a married man, and Salim acknowledged that his wife and children were not accepting of Helen. He also mentioned how the children carried their mother’s animosity into this relationship. “As kids they had their hostility. But they reacted the way their mother did. As I told you very honestly, it wasn’t as if Salma accepted the relationship happily straightaway and thanked me for it or said, you deserve an Oscar for it. So at that time, there was hostility from the children.”
It was only natural that his children, who were all grown up by 1980, would dislike Helen. Salman was 15, after all, and he was well aware of what was going on. However, as time passed, Salma and his children realised Helen was a genuine person, and their attitudes toward her shifted. She and Salim, as well as her adopted daughter Arpita, are now considered members of the Khan family.
In fact, Arpita is the darling of her brother, Salman, and is frequently the focal point of the Khan household. Salim’s life with his two wives, children, and all grandchildren is idyllic. But would he advise anyone to have two marriages? In a report, he was quoted as saying: “Falling in love twice was a beautiful accident that happened to me. I have survived that accident! Though I wouldn’t recommend it as an ideal way of living. Normally it doesn’t work.”
