Multilingual actress Saroja Devi passes away

Bengaluru: Veteran actress B. Saroja Devi (86) passed away at her residence in Malleswaram here this morning owing to age related ailments.

Popularly known as ‘Abhinaya Saraswati’ in Kannada and ‘Kannadathu Paingili’ in Tamil, Saroja Devi was born on Jan. 7, 1939 to Bhyrappa & Rudramma couple in Bengaluru.

She leaves behind her daughter Bhuvaneshwari and son Gautham. Her husband Sri Harsha had predeceased her. Her body will be kept at her Malleswaram residence till tomorrow (July 15) for the public to pay their respects. Last rites will be held at her native village Dashavara in Channapatna taluk at 11.30 am tomorrow.

Having made her debut at the age of 17 through Kannada movie ‘Mahakavi Kalidasa’ alongside legendary Honnappa Bhagavathar in 1955, Saroja Devi went on to become the first female superstar to have acted in more than 200 movies in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi languages through her illustrious career spanning nearly seven decades.

She rose to fame with the Tamil movie ‘Nadodi Mannan’ starring opposite to M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) in 1958. She also starred opposite Shivaji Ganesan, N.T. Rama Rao (NTR), A. Nageshwar Rao in Tamil and Telugu movies. In Hindi, she shared the screen space with actors such as Dilip Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Shammi Kapoor and Sunil Dutt. In Kannada movies, she acted with Dr. Rajkumar, Kalyan Kumar and Uday Kumar. Some of her famous movies include ‘Kittur Chennamma’, ‘Mallammana Pavaada’, ‘Bhookailasa’, ‘Bhagyavantharu’, ‘Babruvahana’ among others.

Saroja Devi was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1969 and Padma Bhushan in 1992.

CM Siddaramaiah, Dy.CM D.K. Shivakumar, Opposition Leader in Legislative Assembly R. Ashok, AICC Karnataka in-Charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, former Minister M.R. Seetharam and other political leaders, film personalities including Shiva Rajkumar, Raghavendra Rajkumar, Rockline Venkatesh, Upendra, Tara, Shruthi, director Sai Prakash among others  offered their tributes.