THIS actress co-starred with Mohanlal, Kamal Hassan, and featured in 450 films, only to meet a dreadful fate

Time of India

21-04-2025

This world of glitz and glamour attracts several girls and boys towards its flair every day. It offers them dreams and a promise to bring the world to their feet. However, the reality stands far away from the fake promises. A lot of darkness lurks in the lanes of the glam world, as it can offer materialistic gains, but not fill the void in anyone's life. An example of the same can be seen in the life story of the late actress
Vijayalakshmi Vadlapatla
, or as the world knows her, Silk Smitha.
Silk Smitha - The beginning
Silk became not just an actress, but a brand. She was a name to reckon with. Though she started small, she worked with the leading men of the film industry. However, there was more to her tale than what met the eye.
According to several media reports, Silk had to face financial crises even before she could make sense of anything. Owing to the same, Silk had to leave her early education, and at a mere age of 14, she got married.
They say life changes after marriage, and that is exactly what happened for Silk. Her life changed, but for the worse. Reportedly, she was in a toxic relationship and became a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her husband. However, she was a survivor, and with all her courage, she decided to walk away from her abusive husband.
That was perhaps her first step towards a new beginning.
Silk Smitha worked as a makeup artist before becoming an actress
After leaving her husband, Silk stayed at a friend's place, who was a makeup artist. Silk also followed the footsteps of her friend and started working as a professional makeup artist on the film sets.
Silk Smitha's rise to fame
One fine day, filmmaker Anthony Eastman spotted Silk on the sets, and from their her life took a 360-degree turn. Anthony gave her the first break and changed her destiny forever. Her journey began with a small role, but in 1979 Tamil film 'Vandichakkaram' gave her a chance to step into the stage of fire, and from there she became a household name. She worked in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Hindi movies and stayed in the limelight for her unapologetically sensuous performances.
She shared the screen with some of the leading men of the industry like
Mohanlal
,
Kamal Hassan
, and impressed critics and audience alike.
The darkness behind Silk Smitha's glam world
On the screen, Silk Smitha was the diva, the actress who had it all, but in her real life, she was fighting several battles. According to multiple reports, Silk got married to a doctor and invested all her earnings in film production.
Unfortunately, the production venture didn't turn fruitful. All the money invested led to huge losses as the films were major commercial flops.
Following this, on September 23, 1996, the news came that Silk Smitha was found dead in her home in Chennai. The postmortem report claimed that she had alcohol in her system, and the reason for her death was cited as suicide. However, many still believe that Silk Smitha's death has been an unresolved mystery for decades.