The forgotten yet unforgettable star

Born a hundred years ago as Vallikannu in the little pilgrim town of Kundrakudi near Karaikudi, K L V Vasantha burst onto the scene in 1939 at the turn of the first decade of the Tamil talkie, when the studio system was digging in its heels, with the heroine-centric film ‘Rambaiyin Kaadhal’.
It was a magical tale of a dancer of Indra’s court, who, captivated by the environs around the banks of the Yamuna, cohabits with a naïve and callow earthling.
According to reports of the day, Vasantha participated in victory celebrations for the film in many centres in Tamil Nadu, and was feted and showered with gifts. Fans were bowled over by her glamorous presence to such an extent that she was given the title ‘Bhooloka Rambai’, curiously the name of the film that she would star in next in the title role.
‘Bhoolaka Rambai’ (1940), in which Vasantha was the beautiful princess who had been kidnapped by a smitten demon and held captive under the waters of a lake, also proved to be a success as did the following ‘Madanakamarajan’ (1941), the first film to be shot at the prestigious Gemini Studio. Curiously, the second and third film had a similar storyline in large part.
Such were the starry expectations of Gemini S S Vasan for Vasantha after Madanakamarajan’s success, that she was considered for the title role for the iconic ‘Chandralekha’ (1948), as photographs of make-up tests taken in this connection show.
Ultimately, it was T R Rajakumari who pipped Vasantha to the post, both because of the delay in making the film and Vasantha’s shift to Modern Theatres in Salem. By the time ‘Chandralekha’ was released and made waves at the all-India level too, Vasantha had married studio baron T R Sundaram, after his English wife Gladys had left him and returned to England.
Starring in about 15 films, mostly as the leading lady, Vasantha had gone on to become the proprietor of a studio (being media mogul Sundaram’s wife). When Kannadasan worked at Modern Theatres editing the studio’s journal, ‘Chandamarutham’, it was Vasantha to whom he once reported.
A petite woman with a somewhat cherubic face and large expressive eyes,Vasantha’s appearance seemed to suit various costumes. She was gifted musically and sang in a high-pitched voice, had a yen for dance and could pull off poignant scenes with finesse.
In addition, she seemed to have had K N Vasu, a native of Thiruvappur of Pudukkottai, an already married man, as life partner and promoter before she began her relationship with Sundaram. Quizzed about Vasantha’s career decades later, Vasu would hyphenate himself with Vasantha and say, “We have been paid from 5,000 to10,000 in those days. We had received up to 31,000 for a film. We had a fleet of cars, and bought a bungalow, which we named Vasantha Mahal. ”
‘Sri Kandha Leela’ (1938) is sometimes indicated as Vasantha’s first film as heroine. But as the film print is lost and the song-book credits mention only a ‘Vasantha’ without any initials, one cannot be too sure about the identity of the female lead based on the fuzzy images on the book.
Veeranki Rama Rao, the creditable chronicler of south Indian cinema in its early decades, while enumerating the successes of Tamil cinema in 1939, notes that ‘Ramba’s Love’ was one of the three hits of the year in which 35 films were made, and that K L V Vasantha was among the important artisteswho entered the film world that year.
The first film Vasantha acted in for Modern Theatres was Satyavani (1940), a social drama in which she and M R Radha — the latter-day arch villain of Tamil cinema — were cast as lovers. The film flopped at the box office.
Despite that, more than two decades later, Radha financed and acted in ‘Petraalthaan Pillaiya’ starring MGR, the only film Vasu ever produced. Subsequently Vasu was the lone eye-witness in the case of Radha’s attempt on MGR’s life. Perhaps the rigorous interrogation Vasu was subjected to in the case made Vasantha opt for a life away from the public gaze.
Back in 1940, in the film ‘Parasuramar’ made at Modern Theatres, like the great character actor Serukalathur Sama, Vasantha portrayed two roles — an elderly role as the mother (Renuka) of the eponymous protagonist, as well as that of Rama’s young bride, Sita. This shows the confidence film directors had in her histrionic abilities. Also, directors like B N Rao, H S Mehta and of course, Sundaram, chose to cast her repeatedly in their films.
While directing Vasantha opposite lead actor P U Chinnappa in the film ‘Sulochana’ (1947), Sundaram sacked the latter and donned the hero’s role himself. He ran into rough weather speaking writer Bharatidasan’s lines as he was not used to speaking literary Tamil.
However, in ‘Burma Rani’, a war propaganda film designed to demonise the Japanese consequent on their occupation of Burma, Sundaram played a callous and crafty Japanese general extremely well, while Vasantha was very effective in the title role, as she was in ‘Rajarajeswari’ (1944), an interesting film on the uncanny effects of astrological predictions. The film was publicised as the greatest love story of the year.
By the mid-1950s, Vasantha had retired from the film world. She lived in a bungalow at T Nagar in Chennai. After Sundaram’s sudden passing in 1963, the Salem connection snapped forever. When quizzed in the mid-1970s about her life as an actress, she had replied she had bid goodbye to the film world and was running a music school training students in veena and vocal music. She lived to the age of 85 and passed away in near anonymity.
(The writer is a historian of Tamil cinema)