Filmdom loses its radiant light

Padmini earned the sobriquet ‘Natya Peroli’ for her impressive skills as a Bharatnatyam dancer and captivated audiences in India and abroad with her films many of which featured her dances with a classical core. Her son, Prem Ramachandran, lives in New Jersey in the US, with whom she had stayed for several years, running a classical dance school, before returning to Chennai in August 2006 for good.

Only the evening before her death, the actress had attended an extravagant public function in the city despite her ill-health and got up to felicitate Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, himself a well-known script writer, for his contribution to the film industry.

Introduced to the film world by the legendary Uday Shanker, who saw her performance when she was 14, the doe-eyed, pretty actress first acted in a Hindi film Kalpana (1949) when she was barely 17. Her first Tamil film Manamagal (Bride) came a year later. She went on to act in more than 250 films in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada, in a versatile film career that lasted more than two decades.

Thillana Mohanambal in which she acted as a Bharatanatyam dancer by the same name and cast opposite the late thespian Sivaji Ganesan was a big hit for its dances and songs. Padmini, especially, won critical acclaim for gracefully and fluidly adapting to the film songs while maintaining classical movements.

Several of her films opposite MG Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, Prem Nazir (popular Malayalam actor of yesteryears) and a few with Raj Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand, including Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai and Mera Naam Joker were very successful.

She quit acting after her marriage with Dr KT Ramachandran but remained devoted to dancing. After her husband’s death in 1981, she acted in a Tamil film, Poovey Poochoodava (Tamil), another big hit, and later a Hindi film with Sunil Dutt. She started the Padmini School of Fine Arts in New Jersey, which is today rated as the oldest and most popular school for Indian classical dances in the US. Her two sisters died a few years ago. Recently, her niece, actress Shobana won the National Award for Best Actress for Mitr.

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