LAHORE, Pakistan — BBC World Service program Outlook is revisiting the life of 1960s Lollywood leading lady Deeba in a documentary-style radio episode that highlights the cruel deception behind her childhood rise to stardom in Pakistan’s film industry. The rebroadcast of “Secrets, Lies and a Child Lost in Lollywood” follows Deeba’s journey from orphaned child actor to national icon and promises to unpack the painful truths that shaped her earliest years on screen, Dec. 10, 2025.
Deeba’s rise from orphaned child star to Lollywood icon
Born Raheela Begum in 1947 in what is now Ranchi, India, Deeba migrated to Pakistan as a young girl, lost her father early, and was separated from her mother during Partition. Relatives near Karachi Cantonment railway station took her in. They began acting as a child in the mid-1950s, before breaking through in films such as “Miss 56,” “Chiragh Jalta Raha,” “Milan,” and “Aina,” becoming one of the most sought-after romantic and tragic heroines of Urdu cinema.
Film historians and fan sites have long documented her prolific output: Pakistan Film Magazine’s archival profile credits Deeba with roughly 186 screen appearances across Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, and Sindhi films, underscoring her complete dominance of the 1960s and early 1970s box office. Earlier tributes, including a 2004 Pakistan Film Magazine biography, Samaa TV’s 2017 “Happy Birthday Deeba” column, and Dawn’s 2007 “Fame and fidelity” essay, helped cement her image as the “Pakistani Mona Lisa,” a soft-spoken star whose face became shorthand for cinema’s golden age.
That narrative was expanded again in 2022, when Dawn ran its long-form retrospective “Flashback: The Face that Launched a Thousand Films”, comparing Deeba’s career arc to the boom-and-bust cycle of Urdu cinema itself — from the studio system of the 1950s and ’60s to the lean years that pushed her into semi-retirement in the 1970s and her return in character roles decades later.
BBC Outlook reframes Deeba’s story for a global audience
What the new BBC Outlook episode adds is a stark framing: the program’s synopsis describes Deeba’s rise from orphaned girl to leading lady as a story in which her childhood success concealed “a cruel deception” at its core. First released in May 2024 and now returning to the World Service schedule, the half-hour segment in the series “Secrets, lies and a child lost in Lollywood” invites listeners to ask what — and who — was sacrificed as she climbed to fame.
BBC journalist Maryam Maruf, who has said she “loved meeting Deeba in Lahore” during the reporting, anchors the conversation in the actor’s own voice, turning what might have been a purely nostalgic profile into a first-person account of what early fame can cost.
Why Deeba’s story still matters
Basic biographical details about Deeba — her birth in 1947, her breakthrough roles in the 1960s, her 1971 marriage to cameraman Naeem Rizvi, and her 2020 Pride of Performance award — have long been part of the public record and are summarized in this biographical overview of Deeba. What the BBC production underscores is how those familiar milestones sit alongside less visible episodes of loss, survival, and reinvention.
For fans who grew up watching Deeba on packed cinema benches, the program is a bittersweet reminder of an era when Pakistani film stars felt distant and untouchable. For younger listeners discovering her through radio streams and scattered clips, it offers an entry point into Lollywood’s golden age — and a sobering look at how much a child star like Deeba paid, emotionally and personally, for the luminous roles that made her a legend.
