Lorong Melayu is a street found in the Kembangan and Jalan Eunos area (see 1972 Map here).
On 8 August 2013, Imran published a post in Singapura Stories about Singaporean and Singapore-born artistes who used to live or visited homes in Lorong Melayu. The artistes who used to live in Lorong Melayu include the late singer, Eddie Ahmad and his sister, Hamidah Ahmad (song duet: Mawarku), and Nona Asiah.
Nona Asiah was a singer and actress who was famous in the 1940s to 1970s. She is also mother to Iskandar Ismail (celebrated music arranger, composer and Cultural Medallion recipient).
In the first webisode of Golden Oaks, a Suria channel programme, Nona Asiah, a still glamorous 84-year old grandmother, recalls her days as an artiste in the Malay film industry. Unknown to many she used to drive a red MG sports car while her late husband, Ismail Kassim (who was also an artiste), drove a matching yellow MG. She also created the fabulously sexy modern kebaya that other actresses and singers such as Saloma, Latifah, Mariani, Normadiah and Siti Tanjong Perak admired and wore variations of it. In this webisode, Nona Asiah shows a photograph herself in a lace kebaya and a velvet sarong with a nylon frill and slit (to aid in walking!). She believed in the benefits of exercise by exercising every morning and advised Saloma to exercise too.
Nona Asiah provided the singing voice of Siput Sarawak (mother of Anita Sarawak) in the film CHINTA (1948) while P. Ramlee was the singing voice of the actor, S. Roomai Noor (father of Anita Sarawak). The music director of CHINTA was the late Zubir Said (composer of Majulah Singapura) and the film was shot on location in Punggol.
She also recalls her last public performance in 1975.
Written by: Dahlia Shamsuddin
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