--- and she's not in Beverly Hills!
I wrote this article on the Classic RMIM on Feb 14, 2010
Hi RMIMers:
I was discussing with Harmesh the year when Madhubala was born, again. I have two books on Madhubala but the computer was nearer to the bed. So, I looked up on the wikipedia and sure enough it said 1933 (February 14, of course!). I hadn't visited this article for a while and I scanned it over. One item about her being the biggest star in the world caught my eye. It said it was published in Theatre Arts Magazine, August 52 (she was 19 years old).
So, I went to the Worldcat website and looked for the libraries that might have it. The nearest was the UCSD (Univ of California at San Diego) library. Their website indicated that they have issues from the earliest to 1960s. I have been burnt by the info on websites before, so I called them up the next day. The guy at the help desk just repeated what I could see on the website and refused to help me further.
So, I called up the next nearest library, the Escondido Public Library. The guy there was very helpful, brought the bound volume of 1952 to his desk and declared that all the issues were present. He said he would hold the volume for me at the front desk. This was a Saturday evening and they were closing in 5 minutes. They were also closed on Sundays.
On Monday morning before going to work, I drove there, became a member of the library, borrowed the volume and came to my car. Eagerly looked in the bound volume. All the issues of 1952 were there except the August issue! Mildly cursed the guy for not looking carefully and quietly drove to work.
At lunch time, drove to the UCSD campus, somehow found parking after circling a lot and avoiding hitting kids on their lunch break, went to the library, found the volume, found the issue and went to the circulation desk. Presented my Friends of the Library card. The young lady said that the volume has not been issued in a very long time and she needs to put proper stickers on it. She did and scanned it into the database. Then she declared, Sorry, you are not allowed to borrow this.
I said I just want to copy a few pages, where are the copiers? She pointed them out. No cash or direct credit card accepted. So, I purchased a Copying Card, put $5 on it and copied away!
Came home after work, scanned it into a pdf and put it on my website.
Now You Know!