Born in a family of 4 brothers and 4 sisters to Mumtaz Ali, who was famous as a dancer and character-artist in films from the 40's era, with his own dance troupe "Mumtaz Ali Nites". Mumtaz Ali's career slumped due to his excessive drinking and his family fell on hard times, leading to his son Mehmood working as a child artist, and daughter Minoo Mumtaz to work as dancer in his stage shows and later in movies.

She was renamed as Minoo by none other than Meena Kumari, who is the sister-in-law of Mehmood. She started off as a stage dancer and later as dancer many films of the 50s and 60s with her first film Sakhi Hateem. She also played the lead role opposite Balraj Sahni in Black Cat^[5] (1959). She can be seen in the song "Boojh Mera Kya Naam Re",^[6] from the movie C.I.D. (1956). She also appeared in Guru Dutt films such as Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960) and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). She also played key roles in Taj Mahal, Ghoonghat, Insan Jaag Utha (1959), Ghar Basake Dekho (1963), Gazal (1964), Sindbad, Alibaba, Aladin, Dharmaputra and Jahanaara.

She married S. Ali Akbar, a film director on 6-12-1963. She now leads a retired life in Canada.^[7]

• Mehmood Ali Family
• Mumtaz Ali
• Mehmood Ali
• Anwar Ali
• Lucky Ali
• List of Hindi film clans