KPK has produced film actors par excellence and Gul Hameed stands head and shoulders above many of them. Standing 6 feet and 3 inches tall, Gul Hameed was a very handsome film hero the likes of whom were rarely seen by the film world. He didn’t live long. Born in 1909 he died in 1937. His film career was barely 10 years old and it was the embryonic stage of the evolvement of film industry in the subcontinent when silent movies used to be made. Gul Hameed had the rare distinction of working both in the silent as well as in the Talkies in 1930s. In a way he can be described as one of the early heroes of film industry in the subcontinent.
Gul Hameed was born in village Pir Piai near Nowshera. His father had got him recruited in the Police but his heart didn’t lay in it. Because of his good physical features he soon got a break in film industry when he was spotted by notable film director A. . R. Kardar who casted him as an hero in his films.
Gul Hameed soon made his mark as a film hero first in the silent movies and then in the talkies. Some of his noteworthy films were Khyber Pass, Sunera Sansar, Baghi Sipahi, Chandar Gupta, Yasmeen, Murderer and Brave heart.
Gul Hameed had married Patience Cooper, a leading film lady of her time after she converted to Islam and became to be known as Sabira Sultana. Hodgkin’s Disease cut his life short and Gul Hameed died at the age of only 29. He had a premonition that his days are numbered so he timely made it back to his ancestral village to breathe his last in the lap of his mother whom he liked very much. Surely, he deserves a footage in the form of a documentary on his life and acting but what a pity that one doesn’t find any programme producer with the required sense and guts to make it.
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