Sujatha

Sujatha Biography

Sujatha was a very popular actress of south Indian cinema during 1970’s. She has worked with almost all leading stars of the industry including Sivaji Ganesan, Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Shobhan Babu and Krishna. She acted more than 200 movies in Tamil and 100 movies in other south Indian languages and Hindi. She has been paired with leading Tamil actors including Sivaji Ganeshan multiple times. She has achieved a hat-trick in Filmfare (South) awards winning three awards for best actress in a row.

Sujatha was born to Kerala parents on 10 December 1952 in Galle, Sri Lanka. She spent her childhood days in Sri Lanka and moved to Kerala when she was 15. Sujatha made her debut in the Malayalam film Thapasvini. Her career started during middle 1960’s. Noted Tamil director, K. Balachander noted her in Malayalam movie Ernakulam Junction and casted her in his next Tamil movie, Aval oru thudar kathai. Its super success made Sujatha a star and she became a part of Tamil film industry forever. The movie was later made to all the rest south Indian languages and Hindi as well. It was the first movie of Rajinikanth in a meaty role.

She worked with Balachander for the next time in Avargal in 1977, opposite Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. She received her third Filmfare award for best actress for the same role also, completing a hat-trick. Earlier she received state awards for Uravu Solla Oruvan (1975) and Annakili (1976). She received it for the fourth and final time with one year gap for the Telugu movie, Guppedu Manasu. She has won Tamil Nadu Special Best Actress award continuously for two years, 1981 and 1982 for the movies, Thunaivi and Paritchaikku Neramaachu.

Mayangugiraal Oru Maadhu, Sentamizh Paattu, Aval Oru Thodarkadhai, Vidhi and Aval Varuvaala are her noted Tamil movies and towards the end of her career she has played Rajinikanth’s mother’s role in Baba, Vikram’s mother in Arul and Ajith’s mother’s role in Villain and Attahasam. She was mostly scene in traditional roles. Her last movie was vathiyaar in 2006. Sujatha died of cardiac arrest in Chennai on April 6, 2011.

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Updated: January 28, 2014