Manorama (26 May 1937 – 10 October 2015), born Gopishantha and known to audiences as Aachi, was an Indian actress, comedian and singer who appeared in more than 1,500 films, most of them in Tamil, and in thousands of stage performances. She began as a child performer in travelling theatre, became the leading comedienne of Tamil cinema in the 1960s and in later decades its best-loved player of mothers and grandmothers. She won a National Film Award and the Padma Shri.
Quick Facts
| Birth name | Gopishantha |
| Born | 26 May 1937, Mannargudi, Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu |
| Died | 10 October 2015 (aged 78), Chennai |
| Occupation | Actress, comedian, playback singer |
| Years active | 1958–2015 (film) |
| Known as | Aachi |
| Notable films | Thillana Mohanambal, Anbe Vaa, Samsaram Adhu Minsaram, Pudhiya Pathai, Chinna Thambi, Chinna Gounder |
| Awards | National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress (1989); Padma Shri (2002) |
| Children | 1 son |
Early Life
She was born at Mannargudi. Her father took a second wife and abandoned her mother, who moved with the small child to Pallathur, a town in the Chettinad region, and worked as a domestic servant. When her mother fell ill the girl left school to work herself. She had a good singing voice, and at about twelve she was given a part in a local play when the actress who was to sing failed to appear. The drama troupe’s director gave her the stage name Manorama. Her nickname in the theatre was “Pallathur Paappa”, and later, from the Chettinad word for an elder woman, Aachi.
Stage
Through her teens she acted in the companies of the day, including plays written by C. N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi, with whom she appeared on stage. She performed in well over a thousand stage shows, and continued in theatre long after she was a film star.
Film Career
Comedienne
The poet Kannadasan gave her first film role, in Malaiyitta Mangai (1958). She played the heroine in a few films and then settled into comedy, forming with the actor Nagesh a pair that appeared in dozens of films through the 1960s. She could speak any dialect of Tamil, from the Chennai slum to Brahmin households to Chettinad, and often sang her own songs. Her Jil Jil Ramamani, the small-time dancer in Thillana Mohanambal (1968), is one of the most celebrated comic performances in Tamil cinema.
Character roles
From the 1980s she moved to roles as the hero’s mother or grandmother, sometimes comic and sometimes tragic, in films such as Samsaram Adhu Minsaram, Apoorva Sagodharargal, Chinna Thambi, Chinna Gounder, Gentleman and Indian. For her performance as a tough-talking woman of the slums in Pudhiya Pathai (1989) she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also acted in Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi films and in television serials.
Records
She was recognised by Guinness World Records in the 1980s for having acted in more than a thousand films, and went on to add several hundred more. It is often noted that she shared the stage or screen with five people who became chief ministers: Annadurai, Karunanidhi, M. G. Ramachandran, J. Jayalalithaa and N. T. Rama Rao.
Honours
She received the Kalaimamani award, the Padma Shri in 2002, and lifetime achievement awards from the Tamil Nadu government and the film industry.
Personal Life
She married S. M. Ramanathan, the manager of her drama troupe, in 1964. He left soon after the birth of their son, Bhoopathy, and she brought the boy up alone, together with her mother, to whom she remained devoted.
Death and Legacy
She died in Chennai on 10 October 2015 after a heart attack. The Chief Minister and the whole film industry attended her funeral. Kamal Haasan and other actors have spoken of her as the finest natural performer they worked with, and for generations of Tamil filmgoers she was simply the mother on the screen.
Featured image: Manorama at a Cinema Journalists Association event, October 2015. Photo by Silverscreen Media Inc., licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
