Madhur Jaffrey: Top award

London, March 18: Indian-born actress and cuisine expert Madhur Jaffrey is to be awarded an honourary CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) by the Queen, Buckingham Palace announced today.

This recognition is similar to the honour conferred upon sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.

Jaffrey, 70, star of Shakespearewallah and several other films, was born in Delhi but is now an American national who lives in New York with her second husband, violinist Sanford Allen. She was previously married to actor Saeed Jaffrey by whom she has three daughters.

Saeed Jaffrey himself got an OBE (Officer of the British Empire) for services to drama in 1995. His former wife is currently rehearsing for the role of Shanti, a slum dweller, in Bombay Dreams, which will open for previews in Broadway later this month. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical has broken box office records in London.

Madhur Jaffrey is recognised as having played a major role in helping to popularise Indian cuisine in the UK through her cookery books and TV programmes.

She was seen recently in the British TV soap Eastenders where she was cast as the estranged wife of a Goan character, Dan Ferreira, played by Dalip Tahil.

British Asian actors have protested that the plum role went to a Bollywood import but did not make a fuss about Jaffrey’s inclusion in the cast.

The CBE will be conferred later this year in New York by the British Consulate, which said today in a statement: “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has awarded Madhur Jaffrey, the award-winning actress and leading international authority on Indian cooking, an honourary CBE. The award is in recognition of her services to drama and promotion of appreciation for Indian food and cult ure.”

Jaffrey has long been a favourite with the British media for epitomising upper class English mannerisms. She first came to Britain at 19 after winning a scholarship to RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art). After marrying Saeed, the couple moved to New York where their three daughters were born.

Saeed came back to Britain after an acrimonious divorce. He is now married to an Englishwoman, Jennifer, who runs a successful castings agency.

The comment from Saeed Jaffrey was: “My second wife made my first wife a household name in this country — and a millionairess.” This is a reference to the fact that it was Jennifer who proposed the idea of a TV series on Indian food to the BBC in the 1970s and, later when the idea was accepted in 1980, that it be fronted by Madhur Jaffrey.

“Wouldn’t it be embarrassing for you to have Saeed’s first wife presenting the programme?” the executive producer Peter Riding asked her. “Not at all,” responded the second Mrs Jaffrey. She recalled today: “I rang up Madhur in New York, and she said she was going to Delhi and she would stop over in London.”