Amirbai Karnataki has been an illustrious actress and playback singer of the yesteryears. She is well regarded as Kannada Kokila. The song `Vaishnav Jaan` that was sung by Amirbai was a favourite one of Mahatma Gandhi. She was born into a lower middle class family at Bilgi village, district of Bijapur in Karnataka. She was born as one of the five sisters of whom Amirbai and her elder sister Gauherbai gained fame and fortune in the field of singing.

After finishing her matriculation, Amirbai moved to Mumbai (then known as Bombay) at the age of fifteen years; she got an offer from the big recording house HMV. They made her sing a Qawwali, which became immensely popular. Gauherbai, elder sister to Amirbai, was an actress. She helped Amirbai earn a role in the film Vishnu Bhakti in 1934. Since then she has been dishing out songs in many films but, those songs were not as much popular. But she rose to fame with the release of Bombay Talkies` Kismet. The songs of the film were declared huge hit, and she became a star overnight.

All the songs of Kismet were composed by music maestro Anil Biswas. By the year 1947, Amirbai Karnataki reached the zenith of her career. But later on she shifted her career focus towards acting, where she largely played character roles. She also bagged the honour of composing music for Wahab Pictures` film Shehnaaz (released in1948). Later on Amirbai left Hindi Cinema for Gujarati and Marwari films. She married Badri Kaanchwala, the editor of Paras. In the year 1965, she had a paralytic attack and died abruptly just four days later. She was buried in her hometown.


Some movies by her are- Boy Friend (released in the year 1961); Dark Street (released in the year 1961); Bedard Zamana Kya Jane (released in the year 1959); Hum Panchhi Ek Dal Ke (released in the year 1957); Mr. X (released in the year 1957); Subah Ka Tara (released in the year 1954); Mashooka (released in the year 1953); Deewana (released in the year 1952); Bedardi (released in the year 1951); Lav Kush (released in the year 1951); Sipahiya (released in the year 1949); Vidya (released in the year 1948); Haqdar (released in the year 1946); Narsi Bhagat (released in the year 1940); Yasmin (released in the year 1935).