Cuckoo Moray
- Birthday: 01. January 1928
Biography
Cuckoo Moray, also credited as Cuckoo or Cukoo, (1928 - September 30, 1981) was an Anglo-Indian dancer and actress in Indian cinema. Cukoo was the queen of film dancing in Hindi cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. Though unfamiliar name, she was known as the "rubber girl" of Hindi cinema and her talent made cabaret dancing a must in the Bollywood films during the 1940s and 1950s. It has been recently confirmed that Cuckoo’s real name was Cuckoo Moray.
Cukoo made her screen debut in the film Arab Ka Sitara in 1946. Then soon after in Stum Chandi, the large audience and directors noticed her dancing abilities for the first time. Then the turning point in Cukoo's career were in Mehboob Khan's films. Her dance number in his film Anokhi Ada (1948) established her as the lead dancer of the era and in Andaz (1949), a romantic drama starring Nargis, Dilip Kumar, and Raj Kapoor, gave the dancer an opportunity to display her acting skills. In Mehboob Khan's 1952 technicolour film Aan she had a brief cameo in her only film in colour.