Reminiscing about a versatile star
RANDOR GUY
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Bhanumathi, who passed away recently, was the `one-man' institution of South Indian cinema.
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MULTI-TALENTED: Bhanumathi
Paluvayee Bhanumathi, the 'one-man' institution of South Indian Cinema, has passed away. A versatile personality, who was a brilliant singing actor, major star, filmmaker, studio-owner, writer, and music composer.
After her debut in 1939 when she was hardly 15 (born September, 7 1924) in Chitthajallu Pullaiah's social reformist anti-dowry Telugu movie "Vara Vikrayam," she never looked back.
B .N. Reddi's hit movie of 1945, "Swargaseema," and its seductive melody "Oooo.ooohoooo.. Paavuramaa." catapulted her to stardom.
Surprisingly, she was most reluctant to act in "Swargaseema" for she had reconciled herself to being a happy, middle-class housewife looking after her husband editor - assistant director P.S. Ramakrishna. `BN', and many of his associates had to convince her, to make her sign on the dotted line for the movie.
During the making of this movie, she became pregnant. So some of the scenes were shot using a `double' (dancer-actress Sowdhamini) with the camera positioned behind Bhanumathi.
Similarly B. N. Reddi was reluctant to cast her in the title role in his `magnum opus,' "Malleeswari." He feared that Bhanumathi would not cooperate as she had become a major star. So he signed on an unknown actor in the role and shot a few scenes.
Watching the rushes, he became convinced that only Bhanumathi could play the role. "Malleswari" proved to be a classic.
She had drive, dynamism and guts. She never hesitated to clash with the mighty of the movie world. She even took on Chakrapani (of Nagi Reddi-Chakrapani fame) during the making of "Missiamma / Missiamma" (Tamil/Telugu).
Initially, she was the heroine and after some scenes were shot, she walked out of the film. Savithri got a major break when she stepped into Bahnumathi's role.
There are many incidents in her eventful life, which remain unknown even to her close friends.
One of them was a legal issue linked to the planned but abandoned Tamil-dubbed version of the Telugu hit, R. Padmanabhan's "Raksha Rekha." The issue was about defamation. Bhanumathi's lawyer; V. C Gopalratnam made out a brilliant point that enabled the dispute to be settled out of court in favour of the star.
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