After making a mark as an actress of substance, Vijaya Nirmala earned not only success but also a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for directing the highest number of movies by a woman filmmaker. An entire generation of filmgoers in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam in which languages she has acted and made films knows this, but few are aware that the veteran actress-director who made her entry into tinsel world as a child star completed 65 years of acting career on August 11.
Nirmala, as she was called then, was born and brought up in Madras (now Chennai) and had her schooling at NKT National Girls High School, Triplicane. Even as a child, she showed keen interest towards stage plays and classical dance which she learnt from Tiruvenkata Mudaliar. During this phase, her father’s friend saw her dance and asked her, ‘Would you like to act in a movie?’ She nodded her head and the result was her debut role in Matsyarekhai a Tamil movie produced by T.R. Mahalingam who also acted as the hero opposite S. Varalakshmi (Anjali Devi had been signed first and a few scenes were also shot on her but she quit the project reportedly angered by the behaviour of the producer-hero). P. Santhakumari was also in the cast and the movie was directed by veteran P. Pullaiah. The film was released on August 11, 1950.
“In fact I played the hero,” Vijaya Nirmala wrote in an article. “Yes, I played the hero, the childhood part of the film’s hero, ‘chinna’ Matsyaraju. S. Varalakshmi’s sister Vimala acted as my heroine. In a scene I have to make her sit in a swing and had to move it forward with force, leave it and step aside before the swing comes back. Enjoying the movement of the swing, I have forgotten to move aside. The result, the swing came back with such force throwing me down leaving me with a few stitches on my forehead. Then I understood that acting is not an easy job,” she recalled. Later she acted as a child star in a couple of Tamil films including Singari (the film’s heroine Padmini’s childhood character) and Mangalyam . Her tryst with Telugu cinema came when she was eleven in Panduranga Mahatyam in which she appeared as Pandurangadu. Interestingly, in her debut Tamil film too she portrayed a male character. Nirmala made her debut as a heroine with the super hit Malayalam horror romantic flick, Bhargavi Nilayam (1964) opposite Prem Nazir. The movie also marked the directorial debut of ace lens man A. Vincent. Its success paved the way for signing a good measure of Malayalam movies for her that includes Udyogastha, Nisagandhi etc., It is to note that Vijaya Nirmala directed her first film, Kavitha (1973) in Malayalam which she later remade in Telugu.
The year 1965 was significant not only for her career but also on a personal note. She was signed by Vijaya Productions bosses Nagi Reddi and Chakrapani for their Tamil film, Enga Veettu Penn ’ a remake of Telugu film Shavukaru . It was after this film that Nirmala prefixed her name with the banner’s and became popular as Vijaya Nirmala. She had thought she lost the heroine’s role as S.V. Rangarao who was also in the movie criticized her selection stating that she looked too frail to play the female lead and asked the producers to change her. Nagi Reddi coolly cancelled the day’s shoot. To her surprise, the next day Vijaya Nirmala was called to the studio and she found popular Tamil actor S.V. Subbaiah replacing S.V. Rangarao. Vijaya Nirmala was appreciated for her performance and later she has acted in many a super hit Tamil movie.
Incidentally, Vijaya Nirmala started her career as a heroine in Malayalam movies, then in Tamil and finally in Telugu films starting with B.N. Reddi’s Rangularatnam . Though B.N. changed her name to Neeraja, the name Vijaya Nirmala stuck to her paving the path for a glorious innings both as an actor and a director.
