K. V. Shanthi

K. V. Shanthi Biography

K. V. Shanthi, better known by the stage name Shanti has been a prominent actress of south Indian cinema and she has also appeared in many Hindi movies. She portrayed several memorable character roles onscreen including 50 Malayalam films apart from Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada films. She was one of the permanent actresses of Merryland Studio's movies. Now she has retired from film industry and lives in Chennai as a normal housewife.

She is born at Kottayam, Kerala and later moved to Chennai as a part of father’s business here. Her childhood days were spent in Kottayam and Chennai and shuttled between the two states till the family got permanently settled in Kodambakkam, Chennai. She got married to Sasikumar and had one son. She made her entry to artistic world as a dancer. She trained classical dance forms in Chennai under various gurus and also got good opportunities to perform as an artist. She was a favourite disciple of world famous dancer – Uday Shankar while at Chennai. She has performed with his troupe for 3-4 years and has travelled across the country as a performer.

Later she started her own dance troupe. Once a production manager of Merryland Studio approached her for a film role. He was in search for a second heroine for ‘Paadatha Painkili’. Shanti said yes and attended auditions and finally got selected. As she spent most of her time in Chennai, she was not fluent in Malayalam and dubbing artist was used to dub for her. She was 16 then. Though she was scared of camera during the beginning, later she faced camera with ease. She was regularly featured in movies produced by Merryland Studio. Very soon she received numerous offers from all south Indian languages.

Published: N/A

Updated: January 04, 2016