Legendary Actress and Queen of Comedy! 5000 Stage Appearances and 1500 Movies! Reigned Over Tamil Cinema Like No Other!

Gopishantha Manorama reigned over Tamil Cinema like no other in a career that spanned over six decades which saw her featuring in over 5000 stage appearances and acting in more than 1500 movies. She was featured in the Guinness Book of World records in the mid 80's when she crossed the 1000 movie mark. She has paired/acted with comic actors across three generations which is no mean achievement considering the fact that in a male dominated movie industry very few actresses tend to last and be active for just a few years during their entire career! Having acted with the likes of Anna, Karunanidhi and SSR during her stint as a very successful stage artist known for her playback singing and emphatic dialogue delivery she went on to pair with comedy actors across generations starting from MR Radha, KA Thangavelu, VK Ramasami to Chandrababu, Nagesh, Cho to Suruli Rajan, Thengai Srinivasan to the likes of Kishmu Gowndamani and Kumari Muthu during the 80's and 90's. Known fondly as 'Achi' amongst her fans she is rated very high by her contemporaries and co-stars. Nagesh wit whom she has paired in more than 50 films had mentioned in an awards ceremony that he considered Manorama as a female version of Sivaji. The same feeling has been echoed by Jayalalitha, Cho, Sivakumar and several other Co-stars of hers. She also sang playback for herself in several movies under various music directors. This is one such song from the movie Thillaanaa Mohanaambaal in which she has acted and sung playback for herself under the music direction of K V Mahadevan. The movie is a classic super hit and you can read more about this movie in an earlier post here.

Greatest Comic Genius of All Time! - Nagesh! Over a Thousand Movies in a Career Spanning More Than 50 Years!

Nagesh is undoubtedly one of the greatest comedy actors the world has ever seen. In a career spanning over 50 years that saw him playing innumerable roles as a comedian, hero, villain and supporting actor in more than 1000 films, he ruled the Tamil Movie Industry like no other, with his immense talent, versatility and comic genius. He entered the Industry in 1958 and was a contemporary of the greatest comedy actors of the Tamil Movie industry such as NSK, Danaal Thangavelu, Chandra Babu, T S Balaiah, T R Ramachandran and others. Cho Ramasamy his contemporary at a later stage in Nagesh's career had mentioned in an autobiographical series which he had written in the Popular Tamil weekly magazine Kumudham had compared Nagesh's acting ability to that of the Legendary Sivaji Ganesan! Kamal Hassan too has echoed the same views in several of his interviews. You can read more about his early life and career here. This particular song features Nagesh and Ramaprabha one of the several talented comic actresses he had paired with during his career. This song is from the movie Nawab Narkali directed by  CV Rajendran. The song was written by Kannadasan and music was composed by MSV.

Another Comedy Song - Vaa Vaathiyare

This is a comical song featuring Cho and Manorama from the film Bommalattam. This movie was directed and produced by Muktha Srinivasan. Cho had written the dialogues for the movie. The movie was mostly a comedy movie with a suspense thriller ending. Jaishankar was the hero and Jayalalitha the heroine. This song featuring Cho and Manorama is really hilarious.