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Ardeshir Irani (December 5, 1886 - October 14, 1969) was a writer, film director, film producer, film actor, film distributor, film showman and cinematographer in the silent and sound eras of vintage Bollywood. He was renowned for making films in Hindi, English, German, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu and Tamil. He was a successful entrepreneur who owned film theatres, a gramaphone agency, and a car agency.

Ardeshir Irani was born into an immigrant Irani-Zoroastrian family as Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Irani on December 5, 1886 in Pune, Maharastra. In 1905, Irani became the Indian representative of Universal Studios and he ran Alexander Cinema, which showed Indian and foreign films, in Bombay with Abdul Ali Yusuf Ali for 55 years. It was at Alexander Cinema that Ardeshir Irani learnt the rules of the game and became fascinated by the medium. In 1917, Irani entered the field of film production and produced his first silent feature film, Nala Dayamanti and released it in 1920.

In 1922, Irani joined Bhogilal Dave, who had been the manager of Dadasaheb Phalke's Hindustan Films, and established Star Films. Their first silent feature film, Veer Abhimanyu was released in 1922 and starred Fatima Begum in the female lead. Dave, a graduate of the New York School of Photography, shot the films, while Irani directed and produced the films. Star Films produced 17 films before Irani and Dave disolved the partnership.

In 1924, Irani founded Majestic Films, at which time he was joined by two talented youngsters, B.P. Mishra and Naval Gandhi. At this establishment, Irani produced the films and either Mishra or Gandhi directed the films. Despite its success, fifteen films later, Majestic Films shut down as well giving pace to the equally short-lived Royal Art Studios which had the exact same life-span as the earlier two, however, it became famous for a certain type of romantic films. Irani improved on it, using new talent to great effect.

In 1925, Irani founded Imperial Films, where he would make 62 films. At the age of 40, Irani was an established film director-producer-distributor-showman of Indian cinema. Ardeshir Irani became the father of talkie films with the release of his sound feature film, Alam Ara on March 14, 1931. Many of the films he produced, were later made into talkie films, with the same cast and crew. He is also accredited with making the first Indian English feature film, Noor Jahan (1934). He completed his hat-trick of earning fame when he made the first colour feature film of India, Kisan Kanya (1937), although the trend of colour films began very late. His contribution does not end only with giving voice to the silent cinema and colour to black-and-white films, he gave a new courageous outlook to filmmaking in India and provided such a wide range of choice for stories in films that till date, there are films being made which have a theme relating to one of the 158 films made by Irani.

Irani's Imperial Films introduced a number of new faces to Indian Cinema, Prithviraj Kapoor, Mehboob Khan, Yakub, Mubarak among others. He also interfered with the medium. He produced Kalidas in Tamil on the sets of Alam Ara, with songs in Telugu. Irani visited London, England for 15 days to study sound recording and recorded the sounds of Alam Ara on the basis of this knowledge. In the process, he created a whole new trend unknowingly. In those days, outdoor shootings were shot in sunlight with the help of reflectors. However, the outdoor undesirable sounds were disturbing him so greatly that he shot the entire sequence in the studio, under heavy lights. Thus, he began the trend of shooting under artificial light.

Irani made 158 films in a long and illustrious career of 25 years, between the First and Second World Wars. He made his last film Pujari in 1945. Irani was not compelled to live like Dadasaheb Phalke for he realised the war was a time not suitable for film business and therefore he suspended his film business during that time. He passed away on October 14, 1969 at the age of 82 in Bombay, Maharastra.

• H. M. Reddy