Gopishantha (26 May 1937 – 10 October 2015), better known by her stage name Manorama, also called Aachi, was an Indian actress, comedian and playback singer who had appeared in more than 1500 films and 5000 stage performances predominantly in the Tamil and also in Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Sinhala. She was honoured with Kalaimamani award in 1995. In 2002, Government of India awarded Manorama the Padma Shri for her contribution in the field of arts. She is a recipient of one National Film Award, one Filmfare Award South and seven Tamil Nadu State Film Awards.
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Early life
Manorama was born to Kasiyappan Kilakudaiyar and Ramamirtham in Mannargudi Thirukannamangai, a town in the former Thiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu in a Kallar (Thevar) family. Her mother brought her up working as a maid. She mentioned being indebted to her mother for her success: saying that many of the motherly roles that she has played in films resemble her own mother. Her family moved to Pallathur near Karaikudi due to poverty. While in Pallathur, her mother had started vomiting blood. To cover her mother's medical expenses, Manorama decided to start working as a maid and dropped out of school at the age of 11.
Once a drama troupe had come to Pallathur and one of the actresses who was to play a small part suddenly dropped out due to her inability to sing, so the troupe was looking for an artist who could act and sing as well. The troupe decided to cast Manorama as a replacement in the drama titled Andhaman Kadhali, thus starting her acting career at the age of twelve. During this time, she was rechristened Manorama by one of her drama directors Thiruvengadam and harmonist Thiayagarajan. Manorama went and met S.S. Rajendran (SSR) when he camped at her native district with his drama troupe. She was selected for a role in his ManiMagudam drama written by Kalaignar M Karunanidhi. She continued to act in plays and performed as a playback singer as well. After having success in the world of plays she was offered to work on a film, named Inbavazhvu, by Janakiraman, which remained mostly incomplete. Later on Kannadasan would offer her a lead role in another movie, Unmayinkottai, which was shelved after shooting less than half of it. She lost hope of becoming a film actor when both these films remained incomplete.
Manorama fell in love with her manager, S. M. Ramanathan and married him in 1954; the couple has a son named Bhoopathy born in 1955. However, they divorced in 1956 and started to live separately in Chennai. She would later state in an interview in 2015:"My mom wanted me to study medicine. But it was not easy to become a doctor in those days, and I became an actress. So, if I hadn't taken up acting, I would have tried to become a doctor as my mom wished for it. But now, fortunately, my grandson is a doctor, and I am proud of it."
Career
She acted in small roles in a few Vairam Nataka Sabha dramas. One time she went to see a drama of S. S. Rajendran, who was residing at Pudukkotai, in Tamil Nadu, and P.A. Kumar introduced her to Rajendran. She showed her skill in dialogue delivery and was offered a job in the S.S.R. Nataka Mandram company and played in hundreds of stage productions all over the district: The dramas included Manimagudam, Thenpandiveeran and Pudhuvellam. She credits her work in Manimagudam as where she was first recognized as an actress. She then took part in an unfinished film starring S. S. Rajendran and Devika.
She migrated from dramas to the silver screen with the role of a heroine in the 1958 Tamil film Malayitta Mangai: Kannadasan was the one to give her the lead role there. The first film in which she played as an heroine was Konjum Kumari. From there moving onto comedy in the 60s. In this period she would be given equally challenging roles alongside the well-known comedian Nagesh in 50 films.
When asked in an interview as to how she got into films, she quoted: "It's all because of Kannadasan. It was he who changed my life by casting me in the film Maalayitta Mangai in 1957. It was a comical role, and he trusted me so much and said that I will be able to pull it off. I was very doubtful about it, but he told me, "If you are going to act in films only as a heroine, people here will throw you out of the industry after three or four years, but doing such roles will take you places. And you have the talent, too, to reach higher peaks." That is when I got confidence and continued doing comedy roles."
The first time Manorama stood before the camera was for a Sinhalese film named Sukumali in 1957, in which she played a friend of the main hero. Her dance master Suryakala recommended her to the director Masthaan to play the role. She has acted predominantly in Tamil films since 1958, but also acted in Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada movies as well. Her on-screen pair with Tangavelu was appreciated in the film Vallvanakku Vallavan. Her on-screen pair with Nagesh was very popular in the 60s, then with Cho in the 1970s and 80s and later with Thengai Srinivasan, Vennira Aadai Moorthy, and Surali Rajan in the 70s and 80s.
She had done playback singing for 300 songs, mostly centered on herself, in Tamil films. The first song that she sang was in a film called Magale Un Samathu, composed by G. K. Venkatesh and she got this opportunity due to the producer P.A. Kumar. She has sung a classical-based song with TM Sounderajan in the film Dharshinam (1970), where she was paired with Cho. Manorama would also perform with L.R. Eswari in a song named Thaatha thaatha pidi kudu. Her career's biggest hit songf was Vaa Vaathiyaare Uttaande composed by music director V. Kumar for the film ''Bommalattam", which was centered around her and Cho. She also sang for M. S. Viswanathan and A. R. Rahman.
Death
Between 2013 and 2015, Manorama had suffered ill-health resulting in hospital stays. She died in Chennai at 11.20 pm on 10 October 2015 due to multiple organ failure at the age of 78.
Reactions
Tamil Nadu reacted to Manorama's death with an outpouring of grief; numerous tributes were paid to the deceased actor across the state and on social media. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa laid a wreath on the body at the actor's home in T. Nagar. Ms. Jayalalithaa said, "There had been no accomplished achiever like Manorama in the Tamil film world and there would be none in the future as well." Jayalalitha was quoted as saying, "I was shocked to hear about her death. She was an elder sister to me. I used to call her Manorama while she called me Ammu. We used to visit each other's houses whenever we didn't have shootings." The chief minister also said, "If Sivaji Ganesan was Nadigar Thilagam, Manorama was Nadigai Thilagam." Others who paid homage to the actress include Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Vijay, Vikram, Sivakumar, Dhanush, Ajith Kumar, M. Karunanidhi, K. Veeramani, G. K. Vasan, Delhi Ganesh, R. Sarathkumar, Ilayaraja, Vairamuthu, Karthik, S. Ve. Shekhar, Vijayakumar, Goundamani, K. Bhagyaraj, R. Parthiban, Radhika, Vimal, Silambarasan, Suriya, Karthi, Vikraman, S. Thanu, T. Rajender and Pandiarajan.
Awards and honors
Guinness World Records – 1985 – for acting in over 1000 films.
Padma Shri – 2002
Discography
Manorama also holds a record of singing for many notable music directors. She has rendered her voice for M. S. Viswanathan, Ilayaraja, A. R. Rahman and many other composers.