Stunning and gifted,
sridevi ruled the roost in the eighties after acting in over two hundred movies in various languages. Funny, sensuous, coy and intense, she is one of the few actresses who can carry a movie by herself minus an actor and has often been compared to lucille ball of the I love lucy fame.
Basics on sridevi
Sridevi was christened as shree amma yanger when she was born to ayyapan and rajeswari on 13th august 1963 in sivakasi, tamil nadu. Her father was a lawyer. She has a sister srilatha and two step brothers satish and anand. Her nickname is puppy.
Sridevi married boney kapoor, a film producer and the older brother of actors anil kapoor and sanjay kapoor, in 1996. They have two daughters jhanvi and khushi.
She made her entry into movies when she was four years old with kandhan karuna (1967). As a child actor she was seen in agni pareeksha (1970), kumara sambhavam (1969) and badi panthulu (1967).
On television
After her marriage, sridevi stayed away from movie biz. She was seen on the small screen in 2004 in malini iyer. She made appearances on jeena isi ka naam hai (2004) and kaboom (2005). She is on the board of directors at the asian academy of film and television.
Sridevi’s movies
Hindi sridevi’s first major hit in bollywood was k. Raghavendra rao’s himmatwala (1983). In sadma (1983), she played nehalatha who meets with an accident and how she recovers from it with the help of somu, played by kamal hassan.
One of her most popular roles was in nagina (1986) with rishi kapoor, as a woman rajni who takes on the form of a snake. Mr. India (1987) in which she starred with anil kapoor was a sci-fi movie. Her role as seema saw her falling in love with arun and helping him bring down the evil mogambo. Her song sequences hawa hawai and khate nahin added to her appeal.
In 1989, she had two major hits yash chopra’s chandni with rishi kapoor and vinod khanna and chaal baaz with rajnikanth and sunny deol. Chandni was a well crafted love story. In chaal baaz she took on a dual role as the separated-at-birth twins anju and manju with two different personalities. While one is spunky, the other is meek and they trade places. She won the filmfare best actress award.
Lamhe (1991) saw her delivering yet another brilliant performance in a dual role as the mother and later as the daughter who falls in love with an older man who would’ve been in love with her mother. Her performance won her another filmfare best actress award. In khuda gawah (1992) she was seen with amitabh bachchan as his wife benazir and his daughter mehndi.
She was last seen in a cameo in rajkumar santoshi’s halla bol (2008).
Tamil sridevi played the lead in k.Balachander’s moondru mudichu (1976) with kamal hassan and rajnikanth. In fact she went on to star opposite the superstars in many movies. 16 vayadhinile (1977) with kamal hassan and rajnikanth was a commercial success and a critical one. She played a young girl mayil who falls in love with a vet.
Priya (1978), sigappukkal rojakkal (1979), dharmayuddham (1979), meendum kokila (1981), meendum kokila (1981), pokkiri raja (1982) and vaazhve maayam (1982) were some of her biggest tamil hits. She won the filmfare best actress award (1982) for her performance in meendum kokila (1981) as kamal hassan’s wife. The movie captured the squabbles between a married couple.
Telugu sridevi worked with n.T. Rama rao in vetagadu (1979)
and nageshwara rao in mudulla koduku (1979). She continued to build up her career with kalavari samsaram (1982) and krishnavatharam (1982). One of her biggest hits was ram gopal varma’s kshana kshanam (1991) for which she won the filmfare best actress award (telugu).
Malayalam she worked frequently with director i.V.Sasi. She stood out in movies like alinganam (1976) and a nimisham (1977).
