She had no friends or relatives whom she could trust. However, Babu ends the relationship because of media gossips and family pressure. She wants to live on her terms with her lover. #ACTRESS SAVITHRI DEATH FREE#This forces Lekha to leave her home and free herself from the clutches of her mother and her relatives who consider her just as a cash cow. Her plan to do select movies is shattered with her greedy mother signing contracts indiscriminately to continue her luxurious life. Lekha, who receives a new lease of life with the film, falls in love with the already-married director. She wins the national award for her role in the film. Lekha’s acting career takes wings when Suresh Babu, a talented director interested in making serious films, casts her in a film that is curiously titled 'Oru Veshyayude Katha' (Story of a sex worker). “Do you think I earned all these money acting in films? The rich who see me on screen check in to hotels and call me offering attractive money,” she tells Shanthamma who is now known by the screen name of Lekha. She is content with her tiny cabaret dancer roles. We are also introduced to Pushpa whose characterization reminds us of Silk Smitha. First by an assistant director who promises her a role and then by those posing as producers and directors and finally a pimp who operates with a string of aspiring actresses. Instead of opportunities, they face rejection and exploitation. Soon enough, we see an overambitious mother taking her teenage daughter Shanthamma to Chennai, the dream city of cinema aspirants, seeking an acting career for the daughter. Celebrities (some of whom we will later see as characters in the film) are shown paying their last respects, along with thousands of fans, to the departed actress. #ACTRESS SAVITHRI DEATH MOVIE#The movie - still considered as one of K G George's best - opens with a newsreel-styled footage with commentary about actress Lekha's death. Shobha in the film 'Pasi' and 'Padasaram' When 'Mahanati', the bilingual biopic of Savithri, and 'Dirty Picture', a film inspired by the life of Silk Smitha, were released, they rekindled memories of watching another uncredited and much fictionalised Malayalam biopic of Shobha - 'Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback' - by director K G George. Incidentally, Savithri too had started as a stage artiste at an early age before she worked her way into films as a teenager. Sharing screen with Savithri in the 1966 Tamil film 'Thattungal Thirakkappedum', Baby Mahalakshmi, the lone daughter of a Malayali couple settled in Chennai (Madras, then), was unknowingly following the footsteps of her co-star who was the female icon in South Indian cinema. When Shobha was giving her first state award- winning performance in front of the camera, she was just three years old. That fateful day, the dream girl of millions decided to call it a day owing to marital discord and depression, just days after she received the best actress award for her riveting performance in the Tamil film 'Pasi' (Hunger). At a time glamour and melodrama ruled the roost, Mahalakshmi Menon aka Shobha successfully used her “girl next door” image for box office success and stardom. South Indian film industry and millions of fans woke up to the tragic news of actress Shobha's suicide on May 1, 1980. The month of May reminds us of a great loss.
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