YEARNING FOR STAR STATUS - RAMBHA

Former heroine Rambha is making her return to Tamil Cinema with Marupadiyum Chinna Veedu, and fans are expecting a lot, reports KK Moidu

Rambha will play one of the five heroines in her comeback vehicle Marupadiyum Chinna Veedu directed by K Veera. She hopes her re-entry with a dazzling performance will once again make her the darling of the industry. Marupadiyum Chinna Veedu deals with marital infidelity of men. Five heroines of the film reflect the qualities of five elements.
Rambha won the hearts of cinegoers by playing innocent village girl roles as well as glamorous roles with the same ease. In Malayalam films like Sargam and Champakkulam Thachan she was a typical village beauty. She captured the audience with her glamorous performances in Tamil and Telugu films.
She climbed the ladder of success in the Tamil and Telugu industry and tried her luck in Bollywood also. When she returned to the South, her new slim appearance was not accepted by the audience and that dried up her career in the Tamil and Telugu industries.
Her downfall in the industry started after the box office disaster of her own film Three Roses. She was backseated because of the huge loss of her production venture.
After gaining name and fame as a heroine, Rambha started her career as a producer in Three Roses. Jyothika, Laila and Rambha played three lead roles in the film, a copy of Hollywood movie Charlie's Angels.
Three Roses faced many hurdles right from the beginning. One of the three heroine's, Laila's accident caused a six months delay in shooting. Rambha's row over a trifle with another heroine Jyothika ended up in the postponement of the shooting of the film.
The hero of the film, Arjun moved out from the project, since it is a heroine oriented film and the action hero hardly had anything to do in the film.
All these problems and the box office flop of the film incurred her huge losses. In order to recover from the debts, she sold her house in Chennai to the financiers for a release from the burden.
Rambha, the one time leading lady of Tamil and Telugu films, found the shortest route to remain in the public eye. She opted for a comeback to the South Indian film industry by doing item numbers in Telugu films Yamadonga, Desamuduru etc.
Rambha earlier performed item numbers in Sukran, Azhagiya Theeye, Chathrapathi etc. She also did an item song in a remote village in Karnataka for the Kannada remake of Tamil hit Pithamagan, which fetched Vikram the National Award for the best actor. In the Kannada version Anatharu, directed by Sadhu Kokila, Upendra starred in Vikram's role and Sangavi played the role of Sangeetha.
Rambha considered the Malayalam film industry as a temporary alternative and played female leads in the Mammootty-starrer Chronic Bachelor and Dileep's Kochi Rajavu etc. Both the films did well at the box office but the overflow of actresses from other states could not accommodate her in more Malayalam films.
Rambha played a glamorous role as the heroine of Kalabhavan Mani in the recently released Malayalam film Paayum Puli. But the director could not succeed in his attempt to cash in on her glamour factor. He failed to provide something meaningful instead of nonsensical stereotyped stuff from a talented actor like Kalabhavan Mani.
Rambha was born on June 5, as Vijaya Lakshmi in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradhesh. She is the daughter of Venkateswara Rao and Usha Rani. She discontinued her studies from eighth standard and was eager to face the arclights. She gained the attention of the audience by playing a Goddess role (Amman) on her school anniversary day — that was the first day she put on make up.
Rambha has more than 100 films to her credit and delivered many hits in different languages like Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada etc. One of the main reasons for her success in Bollywood was her uncanny resemblance to Bollywood heroine late Divya Bharati, an actress who died at the peak of her career.
Beautiful faced Rambha's charming eyes, gorgeous looks and her lavish performances entertained all kinds of audience. She has a rare combination of an innocent face and luxurious body. That made her different from other heroines and she exhilarated the audience, especially those from the opposite sex. She also managed to maintain the glamorous image for a long period in the highly competitive industry.
Rambha was launched in the industry by veteran Malayalam director Hariharan. She made her debut as a heroine in the Manoj K Jayan starrer Sargam opposite Vineeth.
Although Hariharan fetched the best director State Award and Manoj K Jayan won the second best actor State Award, Sargam didn't do very well at the box office.
Her Telugu debut opposite Rajendra Prasad in Aa Okkati Adakku was a roaring success. Director of the film EVV Sathyanarayana changed her name to Rambha. Then she entered Bollywood, Tamil, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Bengali etc. She paired opposite leading actors of the industry like Rajnikanth, Vijay, Ajith, Chiranjeevi, Mammootty, Mithun Chakraborthy, Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Sunil Shetty, Govinda etc.
Rambha played the role of a blonde, Mango Dolly, in Shashak Ghosh's bilingual film Quick Gun Murugan, made simultaneously in Tamil and Telugu. The brainchild of Shashanka Ghosh, Quick Gun Murugan is a small screen hit and he himself directs the film.
The title role is played by Rajendra Prasad and Nasser is the villain of the film. The theme of the film is vegetarianism versus non-vegetarianism. Quick Gun Murugan promises to rescue cows because he thinks he is a cowboy and Nasser runs a fast food restaurant that promotes eating beef.
Ramba will play a full length role as a protagonist in the Telugu film Donga Sachinollu. Krishna Bhagwan and Raghu Babu will play the lead in the comedy flick directed by Raja Vannam Reddy. The film, produced by J Sambhasiva Rao and SV Prasad, is under the banner of Sasidhar Productions.
In a long career of more than 15 years, Rambha has achieved success as a heroine. She is recognised and mobbed on the streets as a celebrity. Unlike other former heroines, Rambha is not playing an aunt's role in her re-entry. This is because she still exudes the charm of a heroine.