Happy Birthday Sridevi

Beautiful beyond belief.Versatile.Actor extraordinaire. India's Meryl Streep.Thunder Thighs.Elegance and Grace personified.Words fall too short while describing Sridevi's aura.Regarded by many as Indian Cinema's first female superstar,last empress and the only pan-Indian superstar,Sridevi's 44 year old career is something most actresses cannot even dream of.She remains the gold standard for heroines-anything less unacceptable ,anything more unbelievable.So on her 49th birthday,we from Pinkvilla wish her many Happy Returns Of The Day.Many God bless you,and may success touch your feet wherever you go.

SRIDEVI,THE CHILD PHENOMENON:

Sridevi was born to a South Indian family, to Ayyapan and Rajeswari on 13 August 1963 in Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu. Her father was a lawyer. She has a sister and two step brothers. Sridevi started her career as a child actor in the 1967 Tamil movie Kandan Karunai playing the role of young Muruga,and acted in many Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam movies from then on. During her early teens, she acted in a number of Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada movies as a lead actress.Truly,Sridevi was a superstar from the very moment she was in front of the camera.And it fell hopelessly in love with her.

THE MEGASTAR DOWN SOUTH:

Getting her first big break as a lead heroine,in K. Balachander's Moondru Mudichu, where she starred opposite rising stars, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan made her a name to reckon with.Rajni and Haasan who would later go on to become the biggest of South Indian superstars,worked with Sridevi in several successive films.So who said Rajni "Khan't"?In front of Sridevi,even Rajni seemed small.At the same time, Sridevi started acting in Telugu movies,with superstars Krishna,Chiranjeevi and Nagarjuna,further cementing her position as a megastar in the South,having done which Sri set her eyes on Bollywood,which she was destined to rule for a decade.

THE DAWN OF THE EMPRESS'S REIGN:

Sridevi made her debut in Hindi films as a child artist with the film Julie in 1975,and later as an adult in the 1979 release Solva Sawan,which was a commercial flop.Any other actress would turn back dejected,but then Sridevi isn't just any other actress.Her second hindi film Himmatwala (1983) became a big success and established Sridevi as a movie star in Hindi Cinema. The songs and trademark Southern style dances in the film became a rage as did her pairing with Jeetendra with whom she would star in several hits like Tohfa, Mawaali and Justice Chowdhry. While these films brought Sridevi commercial success, she earned critical acclaim for her celebrated performance as a child woman suffering from amnesia in the 1983 film Sadma.

SRIDEVI RULES B-TOWN FOR TEN YEARS AS THE UNDENIABLE NUMBER ONE:

While Himmatwala and Sadma did raise Sridevi to the No.1 position in the industry,it was 1986's supernatural thriller where she played a snake woman that consolidated her position in the industry.The film went on to become the years biggest hit, catapulting Sridevi to superstar status. It proved her capacity to carry a film on her shoulders while the climax song remains the most famous snake dance of Bollywood.This heralded the arrival of a female superstar who could carry a film by the power of her name alone,without any hero.She featured in many more big budget hits in 1986 like Karma and Aakhree Raasta cementing her status. Shekhar Kapur's 1987 hit Mr. India further consolidated Sridevi's position as the top female star.

The unquestionable queen bee of the 80s,Sridevi had now reached an enviable position in the industry.Her title role in Yash Chopra's super-hit Chandni reaffirmed her position as the topmost star of the eighties. The same year she delivered another hit in Chaalbaaz. Her portrayal of twin sisters won her the first Filmfare Best Actress Award of her career.

Yash Chopra repeated her in his most ambitious film Lamhe in 1991. While this inter-generational love story failed at the box-office, the film is today regarded as a classic. It won the Filmfare Best Film Award while Sridevi's double role as mother and daughter won her the second Filmfare Best Actress Award. The film was a success in the overseas market winning Sridevi much international acclaim. In 1992, Sridevi was paired with Amitabh Bachchan in the Afghanistan epic Khuda Gawah. Despite the big budget disaster Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja in 1993, Sridevi continued to remain an in-demand star and delivered a skilled performance in Mahesh Bhatt's Gumrah. In 1994, she appeared in Laadla as an arrogant industrialist. Her last major release was Judaai in 1997. Her role of a materialistic housewife who sells off her husband to another woman won her the eighth Filmfare nomination for Best Actress.

SRIDEVI-THE FIRST FEMALE SUPERSTAR AND LAST EMPRESS OF BOLLYWOOD:

Such was Sridevi's aura that at a time when heroines were shooed on the sidelines as being mere props to a film,she dictated terms to industrywallahs including Yash Chopra,Shekhar Kapur and Mahesh Bhatt.Such was her power that she could steal Amitabh Bachchan's thunder in Khuda Gawah,and so powerful she was that she was looked upon as the superstar of the 80s,irrespective of gender,the sole driving power behind her films,the queen that ruled millions of hearts.No words can describe the phenomenon of Sridevi.
*Sridevi had now reached a position where scripts were being written with her as the central character.
*She also appeared in Nigahen: Nagina Part II which was a sequel to Nagina becoming the first Hindi actress to have her own film franchise.
*Nagina,to this day remains the first and only highest grossing film of the year with a woman centric theme.
*She has gone on to act in adult roles in over 200 movies, 63 in Hindi; 62 in Telugu; 58 in Tamil; and 21 in Malyalam - in a career that has spanned from 1967 through to 2007.
*Big B after watching her song in Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja had been so impressed that he sent her a truckload of flowers.
*Sridevi is perhaps the only Bollywood starlet that had attained and remained as the number one actress for over a decade.Filmfare Magazine declared her as the "LAST EMPRESS"in 1993.
*Sridevi was offered a role in Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg. She refused because it wasn't a starring role and it would have meant taking a hiatus from Bollywood, at a time, when she was at the peak of her career.
*She was cast in a dual role in 1993's Baazigar. However, the director felt that the audience would never be able to sympathize with Shah Rukh Khan's character if he 'killed' Sridevi on Screen. The role was re-written and two different actresses (Shilpa Shetty and Kajol) were hired to play the roles originally meant for La Devi.
*Was the original choice for the role in 'Beta' that made Madhuri Dixit a superstar. She turned the role down, because she felt she was already doing too many films with Anil Kapoor.
*She was the sole income earner in her family. She financially supported her mother, stepfather, sister and stepbrother.
*At the height of her career, Sridevi received countless marriage proposals from wealthy American and British born Indians who saw her as the perfect trophy wife. One of her rumored suitors was Hollywood movie producer Ashok Amritraj.

SRIDEVI AND HER FAMILY:

Sridevi married Boney Kapoor, a film producer and the elder brother of actors Anil Kapoor and Sanjay Kapoor, in 1996. They have two daughters, Jhanvi and Khushi (Krishna).

AANNDD...THE DIVA'S BACK:

Even as we're wishing her a Happy Birthday,Sridevi is gearing back to make her comeback after 15 long years in Gauri Shinde's "English Vinglish"which stars French actor Mehdi Nebbou and Adil Hussain along with Amitabh Bachchan in a special cameo. Sridevi is playing the central role of an Indian woman married into an American household who enrols in an English learning program to please her family. The film described as the journey of a woman to find her identity is slated to release in 2012 in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. The first look of the film was released on 15 June as a theatrical promo showing Sridevi's character Shashi struggling to read the Censor certificate of the trailer. It has met with an overwhelming response from her fans and the media. The teaser became the top trending topic on Twitter and subsequently went viral on Youtube.

Here's wishing our diva the very best for her comeback and hope that she comes back and reclaims the throne that's rightfully hers.THREE CHEERS...OR RATHER 49 CHEERS FOR SRIDEVI!!!HAPPY BIRTHDAY SRIJI!!!