M R Santhanalakshmi

M. R. Santhanalakshmi was born in the year 1905 and died at the age of 52, in the year 1957. Santhanalaxmi was a Tamil actress who played heart robbing roles as lead characters in the 1930s and 1940s movies. She was believed to be one of the most beautiful actors of the 1930s and 1940s. She started her film career in the year 1935, with her role in Radha Kalyanam Radhika Kalyanam is a Kannada TV serial which airs >> Read More... , opposite S Rajam, who was a musician in Carnatic music. It was a movie directed by C. K. Sachi. However, the film could not win the hearts of the audience. Before her character as the lead actress in Abikapathy, she had done another movie called Chandrahasan in the year 1936. Santhanalakshmi plays the role of a princess, whom the prince Chandrahasan gets married to. This film, too, failed in pleasing the audience. It was not until the release of Ambikapathy that Santhanalakshi gained her fame; and she never looked back. The movie was a big hit as soon as it hit the theatres. The film was directed in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) by Ellis r. Dungan.

It was a musical released in late 1937. It gained a lot of popularity amongst the South Indian audience and was termed as a “refreshing movie”, with the sparkling romance between the king, Ambikapathy (played by M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar) and Amaravathi (played by M. R. Santhanalakshmi). The reasons, out of several, for the popularity of the movie were for the certain degree of daring scenes of romance between the king and the princess. It was later copied and imitated by various other film actors in movies that came after that. Santhanalakshmi belonged to a poor family and because of poverty she had to join the film industry.