Aarathi

Aarathi Biography

Aarathi is an actress turned director who works predominantly in Kannada language films. She is a veteran personality of Kannada movies known for several female centric roles onscreen during 1970s and 1980s. As a lead actress, she appeared in more than 125 feature films and hence known to be one of the top actresses of her time. She has won Kannada State awards four times and Filmfare thrice for her best actress, thus placing her name among the top Kannada actresses all time. She has also worked in Tamil movie, Gumasthavin Magal and Telugu, Ooriki Upakari. Kannada movie, Gejje Pooje released in 1969 is her debut movie. In 2005, she received Karnataka State Film Award for Best Children film for her directorial venture - Mithayi Mane.

Aarathi was born in Mysore, Karnataka. She debut big screen in the year 1969 with the movie, Gejje Pooje. Very soon in the early 1970’s, she became of the leading actresses of Kannada. Edakallu Guddada Mele, Ranganayaki, Naagarahaavu, Hombisilu, Bili Hendthi, Dharmasere, Paduvaaralli Pandavaru, Upaasane and Shubhamangala are her major Kannada hits. She was fortunate enough to work with almost all leading stars of 1970’s and 1980’s. Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, Ambareesh, Shankar Nag, Kamal Hassan, Rajinikanth, Srinath, Ananth Nag and Gangadhar are a few such big names. Her association with legendary director, Puttanna Kanagal was most noticed. Together they worked in 12 films.

She won State awards for the first time in the year 1972 for the movie, Naagarahaavu followed by Katha Sangama (1975), Dharmasere (1979) and Ranganayaki (1981). She has also won Filmfare awards for the movies - Dharmasere (1979) and Ranganayaki (1981). Shubhamangala released in 1975 also earned her a Filmfare. She left the film industry in 1987 after her marriage with Chandrashekar Desai Gowdar and settled in US.

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Updated: March 20, 2014