Artificial Intelligence created video link of Silk Smitha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxqZkYT6AxA
I always liked Silk Smitha but this latest video created by AI reminded me of her sorrowful death in 1996. Why did she do that? For that, I just looked around the net about her.
She was born Vijayalakshmi Vadlapati at Kovvali village in Denduluru Mandal, in West Godavari district of Andhra Pardesh in 1960 and comes from a poor family. She dropped out of school on account of her family situation and her family got her married at a very young age. Both her husband and his family ill-treated her, so at the age of 14, she ran away to Chennai and initially worked as a domestic servant before she became a touch-up artist....
She later played some small character roles in Tamil cinema and then as a vamp. The Malayalam Director Antony Eastman first made her a heroine in his film "Inaye Thedi" in 1981. It was he who renamed her as Smitha. She had no backing from anyone and if she became a Heroine after just being a touch-up artist clearly shows that she had something ( her sexiness) in her that others did not.
There had been many vamps in the film industry but they had not gone ahead to become heroines, but Smitha did just that. She assumed the screen name Silk after her name in a Tamil movie.
She then starred in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and also a few Hindi films and worked in no less than 450 films in a career spanning 18 years. Of course all the Directors used her sex appeal fully in the movies. Her most respected film was Moondram Pirai which was later remade as Sadma.....
Smitha was an introvert and did not make friends quickly. She was short-tempered but was straightforward, determined which looked like arrogance to others. She was ambitious and was on the dot of time for shootings. Despite not having much education she learnt and started speaking English fluently. She was good at costume design and makeup before she entered films. In 1996 after a Kannada film shoot, she was found dead by hanging in her hotel room and the Police said it was suicide. That day she discussed something serious about her life with her close friend and live-in partner Anuradha....
Smitha became a brand at that time and was more popular than some top heroes, but her personal life was in turmoil and she had many broken relationships. That was probably because most men who had a relationship with her obviously wanted a sexual relationship and in our male-dominated society perhaps no man can tolerate his wife or even a lover being a vamp on the screen and would be terribly jealous and see it as an affront to his masculinity.
Most unfortunate because she has become a sort of legend ( if a sensual one) in her lifetime and several films were made about her after her death....
Randor guy, a Tamil crime writer, screenwriter and the Author of " The History of Tamil Cinema" published by the Government of Tamilnadu says " Films that had lain in cans for years were sold by the simple addition of a Silk Smitha song".
She is not just a vamp but much much more. I feel sorry to know that her life has been buffeted like a boat caught in a storm. Right from childhood she had no security and was always battling life. One can only pity her and perhaps it is right that she fled from the continuous torment by ending her life .
