Manju Bhargavi

Manju Bhargavi Biography

Manju Bhargavi is a south Indian film actress best known for playing the female lead in path breaking Telugu movie - Shankarabharanam (1979). The movie giving importance to Carnatic music was a blockbuster and earned numerous awards including national awards and many international awards. Its music by K. V. Mahadevan is regarded as evergreen and this milestone movie of Telugu cinema was listed among CNN-IBN's list of hundred greatest Indian films of all time in 2013. The movie broke several collection records as well. Currently she is associated with television serials and plays the role of Subbulakshmi in the popular TV serial Thangam on Sun TV.

She was originally named just Manjula, based on her birth star. Her family originally belongs to Andhra Pradesh, though they got settled in Chennai. Her mother is from Nellore and father is from Vijayawada. She was born in Chennai in 1950 and studied at Stella Mary College. She is a trained classical dancer and has performed in many dance shows. Once filmmaker Prakash Rao happened to watch her performing live in a dance program and casted her in his upcoming movie, Gaalipataalu (1974). Later she went on to appear in several classic dance oriented Telugu movies like  Krishnaveni (1974), Soggadu (1975) and Yamagola (1977). She also appeared in other south Indian language movies.

Yet it was Shankarabharanam released in 1979, which placed her name among the most successful heroines all-time. It was IAS retired officer J. V. Somayajulu’s second movie only, and he played Manjula’s Carnatic music guru in this movie. The movie was dubbed to many Indian languages. But later she concentrated on to her professional dancing career than movies. Her 6-feet height was cited as the reason.

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Updated: June 26, 2014