The legendary actress Vyjayanthimala was born on 13th August 1936 in a Tamil Iyengar Brahmin family at Triplicane near Parthasarathy Temple. Her mother Vasundhara Devi, was a leading actress in Tamil Cinema in the 1940s. At the age of just 7, Vyjayanthimala was selected to perform a classical dance for Pope Pius XII at Vatican city.

Vyjayanthimala is still regarded as one of the best actresses in Indian Cinema. She received her first acting offer for AVM Production’s Vazhkai after being spotted by director M.V. Raman. The movie went on to become a huge success and was also remade in Telugu for which Vyjayanthimala dubbed her voice.

Vazhkai was a huge hit in south India and this inspired the production house to remake the film in Hindi. The Hindi version was named Bahar and starred Vyjayanthimala in the lead role along with Karan Dewan, Om Prakash and Pandari Bai. Vyjayanthimala learnt Hindi for the dubbing and the film became the sixth-highest grossing film of the year 1951. She also starred in the Telugu film “Jeevitham” in 1950.

With this Vyjayanthimala became a very famous actress of South Indian movies and also became a part of the golden era of Bollywood. In a career that lasted a good two decades, Vyjayanthimala bought in a new perspective and changed the style of dancing in Indian movies. She bought the flavour of classical dance to the glamorous Bollywood and became an inspiration for several south Indian actresses.

Vyjayanthimala cemented her place in Bollywood while giving Tamil and Telugu hits at the same time. She appeared in several blockbuster Bollywood movies like Devdas for which she won the Best Supporting Actress at the 4th Filmfare Awards which she refused to accept. Her other films like New Delhi, Naya Daur and Asha we also big hits at the box-office.

It was the year 1958 when Vyjayanthimala became a huge name courtesy of her two extremely successful films Sadhna and Madhumati. For both these movies, she was nominated for the Best Actress Award at the Filmfare and won for her role in Sadhna.

Some famous songs that featured Vyjayanthimala were “Honthon Mein Aisi Baat” sung by Lata Mangeshkar and Bhupinder Singh, “Main Kya Karoon Ram”, “Aasman Ke Neeche”, “Saiyan Dil Mein Aana Re”, “Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega” and many more.

The performance of Vyjayanthimala in Ganga Jamna was appreciated a lot by the masses and she also won a second Filmfare for the film. Her movie Amrapali that was a historical drama also achieved acclamation universally.

Vyjayanthimala then took retirement from the Industry but some of her films like Suraj, Jewel Theif, Prince, Hatey Bazarey and Sunghursh. After her film career, she continued with her dance career and pursued Bharata Natyam, a form of Indian classical dance. Vyjayanthimala has also received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award which is the highest Indian recognition for performing artists.

You can listen to all the songs featuring the extravagant actress, Vyjayanthimala on Saregama Carvaan. Saregama Carvaan is a digital audio player with 5000 in-built old Hindi songs by legendary musicians and featuring the greatest actors of all time. You can also listen to famous retro Tamil songs with Saregama Carvaan Tamil.

On her 86th birthday, Saregama Carvaan celebrates all the graceful performances that Vyjayanthimala gifted the Indian Film Industry.