Silk Smitha also known as Silk Sumitha, was born in a poor family, in Eluru, Andhra Pradesh. Due to financial problems in the family, she had to drop out of school in fourths standard itself. She blossomed to grow as a sultry looking girl and she was constantly propositioned and physically ‘exploited’ by men, which is why Vijayalakshmi’s parents married her off at a very young age. However, the ill-treatment from her husband and in-laws made Silk Smitha leave her husband’s home and move over to Madras where she lived with her aunt.
Silk began her career as a touch-up girl to B-grade actresses in B-grade films and then got break in small character roles. Vinu Chakravathy, a director chanced up her in a flour-mill and found that she had potential for bigger things. He renamed Vijayalakshmi as ‘Silk’; his wife taught her English. The girl proved to be a fast learner and she even took dancing lessons from another teacher.
In 1979, Silk Smitha got a role in a Malayalam film called ‘Inaye Thedi’; her sex appeal found her a lot of takers who wanted to star as a cabaret dancer or vamp in their films. Soon, she began to get typecast in these films. In the same year in 1979, Silk got her major role in a Tamil film called ‘Vandi Chakkaram’ and the movie was a superhit. The character that she played was also called ‘Silk’, so Vijayalakshmi as she was known to everyone, changed her name forever to ‘Silk Smitha’. But her sensous appeal and dusky skin gave her only movies where she was to play the seductress, the vamp or the cabaret dancer, limting her choice in roles.
Silk Smitha began to drop her clothes to get more attention and attention she did get, as she became most men’s secret fantasy in the 80s as she flourished rapidly in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam cinema. Her dance numbers and bold sequences had men eating out of her palms, so much that they would buy tickets only to watch Silk Smitha. She was indeed a hot property who would outshine the heroine too. Silk Smitha truly was the first red-hot item girl, but then critics dismissed her as a cheap actress. Most of her subsequent movies had the softcore appeal while in some she would be a cheap version of a desi-Bond girl wearing bikinis and strutting her stuff .
Silk Smitha’s signature rolling of tongue, biting of her lower lip, looking at her lover in a trance-like manner through hazy, sultry eyes and her voluptuous figure had the junta rushing to the movies with a pretext of watching the film, while the real reason was to check her out. Silk Smitha would charge as much as Rs. 50000 per dance sequence and she would do two or even three sequences in a day. There was even a movie called Silk, Silk , Silk where Silk Smitha played a triple role. In less than 10 years of her entry, Silk Smitha had done 500 films which included A, B and C grade films.
But there was much more to Silk Smitha beyond her sex appeal, she was an accomplished actress too. Some of the best performances of Silk Smitha are in movies like Alaigal Oivathillai (1981) where she played the role of a neglected wife who is hurt by her husband’s infidelity. Writer Jerry Pinto says, “Watch Silk Smitha’s sequences and you will find a sense of lingering sorrow. It’s almost as if there were two Silk Smithas there: One watching her own self dance, detached and dispassionate about being put through these calisthenics.”,
Layanam (1989) is one of the most famous adult films in India and it starred Silk Smitha in her sizzling best. The movie was dubbed in many languages across the country including in Hindi as Reshma ki Jawani (2002). Most people know about Silk Smitha’s sensuous yet brilliant performance as a woman who has a huge crush on Kamal Hassan in Balu Mahendra’s Moondram Pirai, which was remade as Sadma. Silk Smitha had fulfilled her dream of working with A-grade stars, she had brushed with the best of male stars in her time, Shivaji Ganeshan, Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan, Chiranjeevi and Mithun Chakraborthy.
Silk Smitha had a string of lovers and some of them were producers, directors and even A-grade actors who were besotted by her. Director Velu Prabhakaran confessed that he had an intimate relationship with Silk Smitha and had cheated on his girlfriend for her. Director Vinu Chakravarthy who was already married, had a secret relationship with Silk Smitha as well
Silk Smitha Death
Silk Smitha was found dead in her Chennai apartment, having committed suicide. The cause of her death is not known, it may have been her disillusionment of
Silk Smitha’s popularity began to wane by mid 90s. She had a live-in boyfriend who had promised to start her luxury life from scratch and lured her into producing films. If reports are to be believed, Silk Smitha’s two movies that she had produced flopped and she was in debt for Rs. 20 million while the third one was stuck due to loss of funds.
Silk Smitha could not reconcile to the fact that she was back to her impoverished day that she never wanted to go to, after she had reveled in luxury. She did get the odd film over, the last one beign a movie called Subaash, a Tamil film, that released two days before her death.
The police directed examining doctors to send a part of Silk Smitha’s body parts to forensic scientists to find out if there were traces of poison in her body, she might have been poisoned before hanging her by the fan; they felt. A post-mortem report on Silk Smitha revealed a large amount of bananas and chocolates in her stomach.
On September 23,1996, Smitha was found dead in her Chennai apartment, Saligramam, hanging by a rope from the ceiling fan of her bedroom. She had tried to turn int a film producer but financial problems, a disillusionment in an unrequited love and an alcohol dependency apparently led to depression. It is suspected that Smitha committed suicide by poisoning herself. She had left a suicide note in which she had written that she was frustrated with repeated failures in her life and so she was taking the extreme step.
No comments:
Post a Comment