She had a luminous quality, a combination of radiance, yearning and a desire to achieve. And she did achieve the pinnacle of glory, first as an actor and then as a politician heading a State. So far as her film career was concerned, it was like a joy ride for her into the tinsel town as the path was already laid for her by her actress mother, Sandhya. Debuting with Shankar Giri’s English film, Epistle when she was barely 12, Jayalalithaa later went on to become a diva of Tamil cinema and also made her presence felt in Telugu films.
Interestingly, her first film in Telugu, Manushulu Mamathalu (1965), was also the first Telugu film to be given an ‘A’ certificate by the censors. She wore a swim suit for a song sequence featuring her and Akkineni Nageswara Rao in the movie. Jayalalithaa took care of her attire in films. She put a condition that the sketches for her costumes must be shown to her prior to making them. She was very particular about her appearance. Jayalalithaa acted with almost all top stars of the time in Telugu cinema — ANR, NTR, Krishna and Sobhan Babu.
A reserved person, unlike other actors, during the shooting breaks she would keep to herself reading a Harold Robbins or Perry Mason or some other fiction. When someone, a journalist or a co-star approached her, she’d politely start a conversation in English with them talking about the novel she was reading or about some Hollywood film. That mostly kept her away from those who were not so well informed on those subjects.
There was an incident when Jayalalithaa had a tiff with her senior colleague ‘Shavukaru’ Janaki. They were acting together in a Tamil film, Oli Vilakku , which was a remake of Phool Aur Pathar . It was MGR’s 100th starrer too. As per convention, Janaki being the senior, her name was credited first in the titles. Jayalalithaa objected to this as she felt she was more popular at that time. She insisted on her name to appear first and won. This naturally created a rift between them.
Years later when she became the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa decided to meet her coevals and invited them to her Veda Nilayam. Janaki was one among them. When queried about their animosity to each other, Jayalalithaa said, ‘that was long ago, why rake up that now?’ The camaraderie was intact. Geethanjali once recalled an incident. She went to a function which Jayalalithaa too attended. When she was about to return, Jayalalithaa stopped her and spoke to her. ‘We were co-stars in Padmnabham’s Sri Rama Katha which was decades ago. But she still remembers me,’ said an excited Geethanjali.
When it came to hospitality, none to match her and this incident illustrates that. She gave an appointment to a journalist on the sets of Sri Krishna Sathya, an NTR film. Everyone knows that NTR normally shunned any visitors including journalists from his film shoots. So the unit hand stopped this journalist. Learning about this, an upset Jayalalithaa walked out of the set. It was only after the journalist was allowed inside, she reported for the shooting.
