Remember the seductive eyed village belle in the films made in the eighties, most of you would have heard about a star called 'Silk Smitha'. If not Silk, as she is fondly called by her fans, was a symbol of 'S**' and was admired for her voluptuous persona and raunchy dance movements. She was the most sought-after 'erotic actress' in the 1980s and in a career spanning 17 years, she appeared in over 450 films in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi languages.
How did Silk make a difference: Till the arrival of Silk there were many item girls like Helen in Hindi, Jaymalini in Tamil and many more. But most of them came in as climax before models and gave a skin show with few or no dialogues at all. However it was after the advent of Silk that the item girl segment had a face lift and a role was created. Such was the impact of Silk on the tinsel world across the nation. And ofcourse our present day films do not need Silk any more as the top actors are compensating her loss with the most wanted skin shows.
Tamil director Vinu Chakravarthy and Tamil film Vandichakkaram changed the Vadlapati Vijayalakshmi into Silk Smitha which was her screen name that charged the tinsel world with rich dividends at the box office. In the eighties there were demands from distributors that 'is Silk there or not,' this was one of the criteria to select the film that would fare well at the ticket counter. From Vijayalakshmi to Silk the journey of the star was horrendous and in all limelight the star disappeared from the horizons. While everyone thought she settled down, her dead body was found in her apartment on September 23, 1996. she had committed suicide and the reasons are yet not known clearly, while many have their figments of imagination woven into her tale.
From Kannada film Bedi in 78 to Tamil Thirumbi paar in Tamil the list was entertaining, sensual and bold seduction. This actor had awesome energy levels and was peppy with her moves, dialogues and looks. All this summed up to what is called as 'Silk.' Infact Silk's Malayalam film Layanam in 98 garnered the cult status in the Indian adult film industry. Daring Silk had shown less but won more acclaims across that the film was dubbed into many Indian languages, which again were enlisted in the adult films tags. And one such was Hindi dubbing of the film titled as Reshma Ki Jawani in 2002.
Silk, born in Eluru, of Andhra Pradesh, for whatever reasons, won a place in the hearts of millions across the filmy buffs. Her phenomenal and astronomical raise was stumped by her unknown suicidal death in utter poor financial situation. The star who got what she wanted in reel life and was in demand, failed to garner loyal people in real life, is the sad part of her story. This should be lesson to all new comers as, hype, fame and even the 'most wanted status' is a temporary phenomena and settlement has to be done when the limelight was on. Waiting could be disastrous, as there would be no takers for the stocks that have no demand in the markets. This applies for both the genders. The whole fact is out of sight out of mind and save for the rainy days, or else one is ruined. To this day we talk about her as Silk was versatile, demanding and bold...(With inputs from internet-AW AarKay)
