Introduction & Personal Life :
Vijaya Nirmala was a veteran Indian film actress and director. She was known for her work in Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil films and for entering in the Guinness Book of Records in 2002 as the female director to direct the highest number of films.
Early Life and Childhood :
➢ Nirmala, as she was named then, was born on February 20, 1946, in Tamil Nadu to a Telugu family from Andhra Pradesh. Her parents included her father had also worked in film production.
➢ For her education, Vijay Nirmala had her schooling at NKT National Girls High School, Triplicane.
Wedding and Marriage :
➢ Her first husband was K.S Murthy. Her son Naresh Vijaya Krishna (born in 1960), from her first marriage, is also an actor. After the death of her first husband, she started living together with actor Krishna Ghattamaneni who was already married, and later the two got married in the year 1969.
➢ Actors Mahesh Babu, Manjula Swaroop, and Ramesh Babu were her stepchildren.
Early Career and Professional Life :
• Nirmala first appeared as a child star in the year 1950 in the movie ‘Matsyarekhai’ (Tamil).
• Nirmala made her Telugu film debut through ‘Panduranga Mahatmyam’ in the year 1957, at the age of 11 in which she played the character of Lord Krishna. The movie ran for 100 days in nine centers and 24 weeks in Vijayawada and Guntur.
• Her second Telugu movie was ‘Bhookailas’ released the following year. She played a major lead character in Bhargavi Nilayam (1964) directed by A. Vincent, which was the first horror movie made in Malayalam. This movie marked her debut as an adult actress.
• She was paired opposite Prem Nazir in this horror-romance film and it became one of the biggest hit Malayalam films of all time.
Early Career and Profesional Life :
• In the year 1965, Vijaya Productions signed her for their Tamil film, ’Enga Veettu Penn’ a remake of Telugu film ‘Shavukaru.’ This was her proper Tamil debut and it was after this film that she prefixed her name with the banner’s name and became famous as ‘Vijaya Nirmala’.
• And in 1967, she starred opposite Prem Nazir in ‘Udhyogastha’ by P. Venu. In the same year, she met her second husband Krishna on the sets of ‘Saakshi.’ This was her second film in Telugu. They were seen together in 47 films.
• She made her directorial debut in the year 1973 with the film ‘Meena.’ She made her small screen debut with Balaji Telefilms ‘Pelli Kanuka’.
• After that, she launched her own banner ‘Vijaya Krishna Movies’ and produced about 15 films. Later, she settled in Hyderabad and started running ‘Padmalaya Studios’ and ‘Padmalaya Telefilms Ltd’.
Awards :
• In 2002, Vijaya made it to the Guinness Book of Records, when she was named as the ‘Most Prolific Female Director,’ having directed 42 feature films since 1972. In 2008, she received the ‘Raghupathi Venkaiah’ Award for her huge contributions to the Telugu cinema industry.
• She had completed 65 years of her acting career in August 2015 and had appeared in over 200 movies in different languages.
Height and Weight Vijaya Nirmala Height was 5 ft 3 inches.