Pandari Bai

Pandari Bai
Pandari Bai, in Parasakthi (1952)
Born	1930 Pathal, Bhatkal, Karnataka, India
Died	29 January 2003 Chennai
Nationality	Indian
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1943–2000
Parents	Ranga Rao (father) Kaveri Bai (mother)
Relatives	Leelavathi (sister), Mynavathi (sister)

Pandari Bai Kannada: ಪಂಡರೀ ಬಾಯಿ (1930 – January 29, 2003) was a prominent actress of South Indian languages films mostly in Kannada and Tamil during the 1950s and 60s. She has the distinction of having acted as both heroine and mother to stalwarts such as Rajkumar and Sivaji Ganesan. She was the heroine in Rajkumar's debut movie Bedara Kannappa and also Sivaji's debut movie Parasakthi.^[1][2][3] She has acted in over 1,000 films in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.^[4]

Early life and education

Born in Bhatkal, Karnataka, in present Uttara Kannada. Her father was a drawing master and a Harikatha exponent, and also a stage actor. He taught her the art of Harikatha, thus even before she was ten year old, Pandari started giving Harikatha performances.

Career

She had acted in 1,500 films in several languages like Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi and enjoyed a long career span of nearly half a century. She had played lead roles in many movies and then switched over to character roles.

In her later career, she played the mother of stars older than she and with most of whom she had played the lead in her earlier years.^[5] She also played as mother to actors like M. G. Ramachandran in Tamil and Rajesh Khanna in Hindi in the 1970s.

Pandari Bai also acted in a couple of Kannada TV serials Amma and Manethana (1998–2000). Both of them were produced by her sister Mynavathy's company Yantra Media.

Filmography

• This is partial filmography of Pandari Bai. Kindly help expand it.

References

External links

• Pandari Bai at the Internet Movie Database
• Potpourri of titbits about Pandari Bai