SRI DEVI- CHARMS UNLIMITED!
If anybody has a right to say, she was born to be an actress then our lady in retirement, Sri
Devi can say this proudly.
A 12 year old tamilian girl acted in JULIE film and from then, there was a queue of producers
and directors interested in signing her in their films, her best talent was her innocent face
all superstars of Indian regional and main stream cinema industry felt happy acting against
her.
*N.T.Rama Rao, Shivaji Ganeshan, Mamooty, Mohan lal, Chiranjeeve, Rajnikant, Kamal Hasan, Anil
Kapoor, Salman Khan, Amitabh Bacchan, Jeetendra, Feroz Khan all had hits and super hits with
Sri Devi as their lead lady.*
Today when I think of the early films of Sri Devi, they look silly, some scenes are downright
childish, but a honey bee sitting on a flower or a water fall with few shots of Sri Devi face
used to create such a beautiful impression of the scene, the impact used to remain on the minds
of the audience and difficult to forget.
Sri Devi’s fate gave her a good face and the face gave her a super hit career in Indian
Cinema Industry, she had a long career, she started when she was just 16 years old, acting
established her name against heroes like N.T.Rama Rao and other heavy weight south super stars it is unbelievable to think, how many big super stars used to act with Sri-Devi, it is so
difficult for a new comer to act against one big hero, she did it easily at age 16 against
all big names of those days, it was just another day of hard work for her.
Plastic surgery either made career of an actress or broke her, Sri Devi is the first actress
in our world who did not have a single effect on her career, her nose job did not change her
fan following. She was busy before the surgery and she was busy after the surgery. Maybe we
do not know, but she had psychological side effects, adjusting to seeing suddenly a different
face in the mirror, it is not easy for a person to deal with such a change psychologically. I
think it must have shaken her for few days.
She has many top films to her credit, among them are sweet sixteen(Telugu, Tamil) Sadma, Mr.
India, Chandani, Tohfa, Janbaaz etc., She is the only actress who acted against top heroes of
Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi films. No other Indian actress can claim this to her name
she is a top unique person in her achievements, I am sure nobody can repeat her achievement
from such a young age again, ever again in India.
Sri Devi is unique in her fan following, she has whole of India as her fan base, North, South
East, West all like her, in a way she has united India in her image. She was a top heroine
from day one in Tamil films, then in Malayalam, then in Telugu films and finally in Hindi
films. She got top dollar from all her producers. She married late in her life, this is the
fate of all people who are in public demand.
She was married to Boney Kapoor, a established producer and director in Hindi films, she took
part in production with her husband in some of his projects. Now she is doing TV serial
called Malini Iyer. I will not talk about acting talent of Sri Devi, a girl who has lived
70% of her life in front of a movie camera must know how to act? But films like Sadma are
her proof of acting, sadma can never be repeated again as a showcase of acting for any other
actress. Sri Devi was outstanding in it.
Being Sri Devi’s fan since early days I do not agree with her plastic surgery, she was
immensely more charming and beautiful before surgery. Her original avatar is more charming
than her modified avatar. One more important point about Sri Devi’s acting is she looks
perfectly "Made for Each Other" with every male actor she ever acted.!
She looked just right with N.T.Rama Rao and also with Amitabh Bacchan, this must be some
secret mannerism she has in herself to MOULD her body language to the needs of her role,
Sri Devi must have mastered this talent very well, This trait is not seen with any other
Indian Actress, Maybe if someone became her devoted student, she may pass on this secret
recipe of body language to a bright young next generation actress.
We in India do not have documentation systems very well, we just keep giving acting jobs to
our senior actors, we must ask our top performers to write their secret approach to their roles
their formula for success or ask them to become teachers in universities of performing arts.
We must cash on the senior artists now, there is loads of information with them, people like
Feroz Khan, Dara Singh, Jeetendra, Amitabh Bacchan, Dharminder, Hema Malini, Dilip Kumar, Pran must be made honorary faculty members of some artist training institutes. They must be
made to write their memoirs and distribute their writings on a wide scale. This will be of use
for new generations of Indian films. Otherwise we will have to send abroad our youngsters or
borrow some new comers from abroad to bring new tech in Indian films. We have ILM in our own
backyard, why harvest ILM outside India.
*Yo! as you sow, so you reap!