Actor Sheela
| Photo Credit: K. RAGESH

She ensures her posture is right, that her pink saree looks perfect in the frame. Then her eyes meet the camera.

She smiles. It is not difficult to understand why Sheela was the dream girl of Malayalam cinema for a couple of decades.

No actress has lit up the screen the way she has. Like Aishwarya Rai, it was her looks that people focussed more on. But she has given some fabulous performances, in films like Kallichellamma, Chemmeen and Akale, and proved that she was much more than a pretty face.

“Kallichellamma is the all-time personal favourite for me,” Sheela tells The Hindu at Kozhikode, where her paintings have been exhibited, to support charity. “I had to get into the skin of a village woman, a life I knew nothing of. People always talk about Chemmeen, but I feel Kallichellamma was more challenging.”

Sheela may have gone on to become the most successful actress in Malayalam cinema, but it wasn’t a case of a dream-coming-true for her. “I became an actress, first on stage, because my mother asked me to, as my family had run into deep financial problems after my father passed away,” she says. “I was just 13, when I acted in my only play, which was inaugurated by MGR, who liked me and cast me in my first film, Paasam. He was the biggest star in Tamil at the time, but I didn’t know who he was, so I didn’t have any nerves while acting with him. Before I had begun my career in cinema, I had seen just one film in my life – Kandam Becha Kottu.”

While Sheela was acting in the Tamil film with MGR, director P. Bhaskaran and actor Sathyan, from the neighbouring studio, saw her and cast her in the Malayalam film Bhagyajathakam. “And Bhagyajathakam was released first, well before Paasam,” she recalls. “So within a matter of months after I was spotted while watching a drama, I became a star in films.

“But it was because of an advice from producer P. Subramaniam of Merryland Studios that I became serious about acting. He told me people would be watching my films even when I became old. I regret that I couldn’t do more theatre. I loved watching plays, such as those by N.N. Pillai.”

She was destined to delight the Malayali audience on screen, with her hundreds of films and all those beautiful songs, most of which were sung by P. Susheela. “Yes, I have been fortunate to enact so many great songs on screen,” she says. “It felt nice when Vayalar Ramavarma said on stage, when Prem Nazir, Sathyan and I were present, that if the song was going to be shot on me, he would think of me, but if it was about any other actress, he would use his imagination. What bigger compliment could you expect for a woman, from such a great poet?”

‘Painting a passion’

Painting has also been a passion for Sheela. “This is my third exhibition, and the two previous ones have also been for charity,” she says. “I have been painting since my school days.”

Among the present crop of actors, Sheela enjoys watching Basil Joseph. “I like the way he acts,” she says. “And he was one actor I wanted to meet, and was happy to present him with an award.”