Muzaffar Adeeb

Who was Muzaffar Adeeb?

Muzaffar Adeeb was a Pakistani film actor. He appeared in 38 films from 1940 to 1998, although he did not start performing in films until 1950s. In 1960, he shifted from Bombay, India, to Lahore, Pakistan and resumed his film career that lasted until his death.

He was villain of Pakistani silver screen, born in Bombay in a conservative pukhtoon family that was resident in Kashmir. His family moved on to Bombay before the Partition and that is where the actor in him emerged, after the completion of his Master's Degree in Urdu literature from Bombay University Maharashtra. Unlike his contemporaries, scriptwriting was the first love of Adeeb, who worked in the scriptwriting department with Raj Kapoor's father, Prithvi Raj Kapoor, in Prithvi Theatre and later with Indian National Theatre as assistant director. It is during this time in India that he got to know the basics of acting which later helped him enthral generations of audience.

Although he worked in minor roles in his initial career, it was Zia Sarhadi's Footpath that gave him his first breakthrough role opposite Dilip Kumar, Meena Kumari and Anwar Hussain. He worked in 30 films during his stay in India including Mehndi, Pak Daman and Jung, before migrating to Pakistan in 1962, on the insistence of director Akbar Ali Akku and actor/director Iqbal Yusuf, son of Adeeb’s close friend, director S.M. Yusuf. He settled in Karachi and later moved on to Lahore in search of roles which kept pouring in from the ‘60s until his very last film – Syed Noor’s super-hit Majajan.