Mumtaz joined the film industry at a very young age, and worked as a background dancer and a supporting actor for a few years before she started landing lead roles. One of the first filmmakers who cast her in a lead role was V Shantaram. She was hired for the 1967 film Boond Jo Ban Gayee Moti, alongside Jeetendra, but Jeetendra wasn’t happy with Mumtaz getting the lead role and raised an objection. In a recent chat, Mumtaz spoke about said that at one point, Shantaram had to tell Jeetendra that he should drop out of the film if he wasn’t willing to work with Mumtaz.
In a chat with Radio Nasha Official, Mumtaz said that Shantaram’s daughter Rajshree was supposed to do the film, but she left it because she was planning to get married. In her place, Shantaram decided to cast Mumtaz as he felt that she was the right choice. Mumtaz recalled, “I am sorry Jeetu but that’s what you said. He said, ‘Why are you taking Mumtaz?’ Shantaram said, ‘I think she has got all the qualities of becoming a heroine. She is beautiful, she dances well, she is a good actress and I like her’. Jeetu was like ‘No, no. Can’t we cast someone else?’ Shantaram told him, ‘She will be the heroine. If you don’t want to do it, then you can leave the film’.”
Mumtaz then looked into the camera and apologised to Jeetendra for saying this and added, “I am sorry Jeetu that I am saying that, but that’s what’s true.”
In the same chat, she credited Dilip Kumar and Mehmood for supporting her in the early days of her career. She shared that back then, no leading star was ready to work with her but Dilip Kumar placed his confidence in her for Ram Aur Shyam. “Dilip Kumar looked at the reel and said, ‘She is beautiful and she dances well. I will do the film with her.’ I’m very thankful to him. When he agreed to do the film with me that’s why I could become an actor. If he would have said ‘no’, I couldn’t have become an actor,” she shared, and added, “When he agreed to do the film with me, nobody else refused. Everybody worked with me after that.”
