Santha Kumari (born 28 August 1965), famously known as Disco Shanti, is an Indian actress who was particularly famous in

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...

for her appearances in

item number In Indian cinema, an item number or item song is a musical number inserted into a film that may or may not have any relevance to the plot. The term is commonly used within Indian films (Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, and ...

s. She has appeared in more than 900 films in different

languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians, both families together are sometimes known ...

, including

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

, Telugu,

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and Odia.

Personal life

Disco Shanti is the daughter of Tamil actor C. L. Anandan, who starred in many films, such as ''

Vijayapuri Veeran ''Vijayapuri Veeran'' () is a 1960 Indian Tamil-language swashbuckler film directed by Joseph Thaliath Jr. and written by A. C. Tirulokchandar. An adaptation of the novel ''The Three Musketeers'' by Alexandre Dumas, it stars C. L. Anandan (i ...

'' and '' Kaattumallika''. She has a younger sister, actress

Lalitha Kumari Lalitha Kumari (born 18 May 1967) is an Indian actress who worked in Tamil films. She is the daughter of Tamil actor C. L. Anandan and the younger sister of actress Disco Shanti. Personal life Lalitha Kumari married actor Prakash Raj in 1994 ...

. She married Telugu actor Sri Hari in 1996 and stopped working in movies. The couple had two sons and a daughter. Their daughter Akshara died when she was just four months old. The family started the Akshara Foundation in her memory, which aims to supply villages with fluoride-free water and students with school supplies. They also adopted four villages in

Medchal Medchal is a Outer Suburb of Hyderabad in the Medchal–Malkajgiri district of the Indian state of Telangana. It is the mandal headquarters of Medchal mandal in Keesara revenue division of the district. It also forms a part of Hyderabad Metropo ...

. Sri Hari, who had been suffering from a liver ailment for some time, complained of giddiness during the shooting of '' R... Rajkumar'', being directed by

Prabhu Deva Prabhu Deva (born 3 April 1973) is an Indian dance choreographer, film director, producer and actor who has worked predominantly in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada language films. In a career spanning 32 years, he has performed and designed a ...

. He was rushed to a hospital where he died later.

Filmography

Disco Shanti performed / acted in the following movies.

Depictions in popular culture

The Dirty Picture ''The Dirty Picture'' is a 2011 Indian Hindi-language biographical musical drama film inspired by the life of Silk Smitha, an Indian actress noted for her erotic roles. The filmmakers have clarified that the story is not officially or literal ...

'', a 2011

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

musical

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

film was inspired by the life of

Silk Smitha Vijayalakshmi Vadlapati (2 December 1960 – 23 September 1996), better known by her stage name Silk Smitha, was an Indian actress and dancer who worked predominantly in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi films. Smitha was part of ...

(a South Indian actress noted for her erotic roles) as well as her southern contemporaries such as Disco Shanti and other women in popular culture, including Hollywood actress and sex symbol

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shanti, Disco 20th-century Indian actresses Actresses in Tamil cinema Actresses in Kannada cinema Indian film actresses Living people Actresses in Malayalam cinema Actresses in Hindi cinema Actresses in Telugu cinema 1965 births

Personal life

Filmography

Depictions in popular culture

See also

References

External links