Meena Durairaj, known professionally as Meena, is an Indian actress who predominantly works in South Indian films as well as Hindi cinema. She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer. Meena has acted in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, and Hindi films She is one of the most sought after actresses in the South Indian film industry. In addition to acting, Meena is also a playback singer, TV judge, and occasional dubbing artist. She has received numerous accolades, including two Filmfare Awards South, three Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, two Nandi Award for Best Actress and Cinema Express Awards. In 1998, she was honoured with the Kalaimamani Award by Government of Tamil Nadu.
Ramya Krishnan, also credited as Ramya Krishna, is an Indian actress. In a career spanning over four decades she has appeared in five languages: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi. Ramya has won four Filmfare Awards, three Nandi Awards, and a Tamil Nadu State Film Award Special Prize.
Saritha is an Indian actress who has acted in more than 500 films in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu languages. She was one of the popular and critically acclaimed lead actresses during the 1980s. She also appeared in a television serial, Selvi. She is also credited as a dubbing artist. She has dubbed her voice for Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu movies for actresses like Nagma, Vijayashanti, Tabu, Sushmita Sen, Ramya Krishnan and Soundarya in 1990s.
K. S. Sethumadhavan was an Indian film director and screenwriter who worked predominantly in Malayalam cinema. He also directed films in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.
Padmapriya Janakiraman, better known mononymously as Padmapriya, is an Indian actress who mainly appears in Malayalam films. Padmapriya made her acting debut in the Telugu film Seenu Vasanthi Lakshmi in 2004.
Kanaka Vijayalakshmi, known by her stage name Madhavi is an Indian former actress known for her works in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam films. In a career spanning of almost 2 decades she has been featured in around 300 films and was hailed as one of the leading actresses of South Indian Cinema in the 1980s.
Geetha is an Indian actress who appears in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi films. She debuted in the Tamil film Bairavi. Since then she has acted in over 200 films in all major South Indian languages, and in a few Hindi films. She also appears in South Indian television serials. Geetha has won two Filmfare Awards South and Kerala State Film Awards, Karnataka State Film Awards each.
Filmfare Awards South is the South Indian segment of the annual Filmfare Awards. They are presented by Filmfare magazine to honour artistic and technical excellence in the Indian film industry encompassing four languages: Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. When it was introduced in 1954, the Filmfare Awards initially only recognized achievements in the Hindi film industry. In 1964 the awards were extended to Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Marathi languages. Malayalam cinema was included in the awards in 1967 and Kannada cinema followed in 1970.
Julie is a 1975 Indian romantic drama film directed by K. S. Sethumadhavan and written by Chakrapani. The film stars Lakshmi in the title role. It also stars Vikram Makandar, Nadira, Rita Bhaduri, Om Prakash, Utpal Dutt and Sridevi, in her first significant Hindi role. The film was a critical and commercial success. Despite the film's success, Lakshmi felt comfortable in choosing to do mostly South Indian movies. Julie was also a musical blockbuster with critics alike and with award-winning music by Rajesh Roshan, which won him the Filmfare Award for the year. It had one of the first English songs in an Indian film, "My Heart is Beating", sung by Preeti Sagar. It is a remake of a Malayalam blockbuster film Chattakari (1974), which also starred Lakshmi as the female lead making her Malayalam and Hindi film debuts in both versions respectively. She would star in yet another remake, the Telugu film Miss Julie Prema Katha (1975). She didn't act in the Kannada remake, Julie, released in 2006, which had Ramya in the title role as Julie and Dino Morea as the leading man. She also declined the role of Julie's mother in the Malayalam remake titled Chattakari (2012), stating that she wanted the audiences to remember her as the young and beautiful Julie; the title role went to Shamna Kasim. Actress Urvashi portrayed the role of Julie in its Tamil remake Oh Maane Maane (1984). The remake and adaptation rights of this film are now owned by Glamour Eyes Films.
Chattakkari is a 1974 Indian Malayalam-language film directed by K. S. Sethumadhavan and produced by M. O. Joseph, starring Lakshmi, Mohan Sharma, Adoor Bhasi and Sukumari. The film was written by Thoppil Bhasi based on Pamman's famous novel of the same name.
Neravanda Chetticha Prema is an Indian actress known for her work predominantly in Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and a few Tamil language films. Who ruled Kannada industry in the 90s and early 20s and she has appeared in many commercially successful feature films. She was a leading Kannada actress at the turn of the century and has received the Karnataka State Film Award and Filmfare Best Actress awards for her performances in Kannada films. She has featured in Om and Yajamana, which are the two major blockbuster and highest-grossing films of their time in Kannada cinema. After an eight-year hiatus, she returned to films with Upendra Matte Baa in 2017.
Priya Mani Raj née Iyer, known by her stage name Priyamani, is an Indian actress. She is the recipient of several awards, including a National Film Award and three Filmfare Awards South. She predominantly work in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam languages films.
Amala Akkineni is an Indian actress, Bharatanatyam dancer, and activist. She has predominantly worked in Tamil films, in addition to Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada-language films. She was a leading actress in the Tamil film industry from 1986 to 1992 and has appeared in many blockbusters in Tamil and other languages. She has won two Filmfare Awards South, namely Best Actress – Malayalam for the 1991 film Ulladakkam and Best Supporting Actress – Telugu for the 2012 film Life Is Beautiful. Amala is the co-founder of Blue Cross of Hyderabad, a non-government organisation (NGO) in Hyderabad, India, which works towards the welfare of animals and preservation of animal rights in India.
Sarada is an Indian actress and politician. Known for her work predominantly in Telugu films and Malayalam films, Sarada is the recipient of three National Awards. She has also appeared in few Tamil, Hindi as well as Kannada language films. She is also known as Urvasi Sarada – National Film Award for Best Actress was officially designated the Urvasi Award. She won three National Awards for her roles in Thulabharam (1968), Swayamvaram (1972), and Nimajjanam (1977). Sarada won the NTR National Award by the Government of Andhra Pradesh for her contributions to Indian cinema.
Sankaramanchi Janaki, widely known as Sowcar Janaki, is an Indian actress known for her works primarily in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada language films. Janaki has appeared in close to over 390, films, predominantly in Telugu,. She also performed on stage in over 300 shows and was a radio artist during her earlier years. She is the recipient of two Nandi Awards, Kalaimamani and India's fourth-highest civilian award Padma Shri. Her younger sister Krishna Kumari, is also a noted actress.
Sujatha was an Indian actress who performed and starred in a variety of unique characters in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films- in addition to few in Kannada and Hindi languages as well. The actress was best known for restraint and subtlety in portrayal of varied emotions. After starring in numerous Malayalam films in her mother-tongue, Sujatha later got introduced to the Tamil film industry by veteran director K. Balachander and producer P.R. Govindarajan as a protagonist in her first Tamil film, Aval Oru Thodar Kathai (1974). It was a critically acclaimed film and launched the actress's first commecrical breakthrough in her acting career. Whereas, her first Telugu picture happened to be a Telugu/Tamil bilingual titled as Guppedu Manasu (1979) in Telugu and was simultaneously shot as Nool Veli in Tamil of the same year. She died of a cardiac arrest on 6 April 2011 in Chennai.
Saranya Ponvannan is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam and a few Kannada language films. She also acted in 1 Hindi movie Chup: Revenge of the Artist in 2022. Saranya made her acting debut in a lead role in Mani Ratnam's Nayakan (1987) and went on to play lead roles from 1987 to 1996. Following an eight-year sabbatical, she returned to films in 2003 as a character actor roles. In her career spanning around over 25 years she had won a number of accolades including 1 National Film Award, 2 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and a record of 5 Filmfare Award South among other film awards.
The 22nd Filmfare Awards South ceremony honoring the winners of the best of South Indian cinema in 1974 was an event held in Shanmukhananda Hall Bombay on 30 March 1975 along with Hindi Awards.
