padmini, famous actress, passes away

oct 2nd, 2006

padmini, the last of the three famous 'travancore sisters' in the films, passed away. they were from trivandrum.

padmini, like her sisters, and even more so, was a classically beautiful woman and actress who was also a brilliant dancer -- and that was what she did for most of her life, especially after she retired from the screen and moved to new jersey, where she set up a school of dancve.

lalita, padmini and ragini were all famous names on the malayalam screen, but only padmini became big in hindi films; i think all of them acted in tamil too. if i am not mistaken, her biggest hit in hindi was 'jis desh men ganga behti hai' and similarly 'tillana mohanambal' in tamil.

fimography:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0655804/

the last movie in which i remember her is in malayalam, the outstanding 'vaastuhara' by aravindan, about the dispossessed and damned refugees from east bengal, and the hero is a malayalee officer involved with resettling them in the andamans. a wonderful movie, and the most accessible of aravindan's films -- he was a genius, a mystic of the cinema, who often made difficult and elliptic films. (tarkovsky reminds me of aravindan).

Padmini plays the hero's aunt; interestingly in the flashback, the aunt in her youth is played by the actress and dancer shobhana, who is in fact padmini's niece.