Shamlee, also known as Baby Shamili/Shamlee, (born 10 July 1987), is an Indian actress who has worked in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

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, nati ...

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 ...

, and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

films. Her roles include the

mentally challenged Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation,Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signific ...

child Anjali in the 1990 film '' Anjali'', for which she won the

National Film Award for Best Child Artist The National Film Award for Best Child Artist is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several awards pr ...

, and a child trapped inside a bore-well in the film ''

Malootty ''Malootty'' is a 1990 Indian Malayalam-language survival drama film directed by Bharathan, starring Jayaram, Urvashi, and Shamili. The story is set in the 1980s, in which a girl is trapped in a drill hole and survives after many hours. The title ...

'', which won her a

Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist The Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist is an award, begun in 1969, presented annually at the Kerala State Film Awards of India for the best performance by a child actor in the Malayalam cinema. Until 1997, the awards were managed dire ...

. She has also won the

Karnataka State Film Award for Best Child Actor (Female) Karnataka State Film Award for Best Child Actor (Female) is a state film award of the Indian state of Karnataka given during the annual Karnataka State Film Awards. The award honours Kannada language films. Award winners The following is a par ...

for her performance in her Kannada debut

Mathe Haditu Kogile ''Matthe Hadithu Kogile'' (Kannada: ಮತ್ತೆ ಹಾಡಿತು ಕೋಗಿಲೆ) is a 1990 Indian Kannada film, directed by H. R. Bhargava and produced by S. Shankar. The film stars Vishnuvardhan, Baby Shyamili, Anant Nag, Bhavya and ...

Early life

Shamlee is from a family of actors, being the younger sister to actor

Richard Rishi Richard Rishi is an Indian actor who predominantly appears in Tamil and Telugu films and few Malayalam and Kannada films. He is known for Koottu, ''A Film by Aravind'' and his controversial caste movies with director Mohan G, namely '' Draupat ...

and actress

Shalini Shalini (born 20 November 1979), also known as Baby Shalini, is a former Indian child artist and actress who predominantly worked in Malayalam and Tamil films. During the 80s, Shalini was the most successful child artist in the Malayalam film i ...

. She was born to Babu and Alice. Her father migrated to

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

with an ambition of becoming an actor and the family settled there. Later he fulfilled his ambition through his children.

Career

Shamlee started acting at the age of two in

Tamil Cinema Tamil cinema, also known as Kollywood is a part of Indian Cinema; primarily engaged in production of motion pictures in the Tamil language. Based out of the Kodambakkam neighbourhood in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, it is popularly called ''Kollywood' ...

with the Vijaykanth starrer ''

Rajanadai ''Rajanadai'' () is a 1989 Indian Tamil-language crime film directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar. The film stars Vijayakanth, Gautami, Vidhyashree and Seetha. It was released on 28 October 1989. The film was later remade in Hindi by Chandrasekhar ...

''. In 1990, she acted in

Bharathan Bharathan (14 November 1946 – 30 July 1998) was an Indian film maker, artist, and art director. Bharathan is noted for being the founder of a new school of film making in Malayalam cinema, along with Padmarajan and K. G. George, in th ...

's ''

'', a film based on

Jessica McClure Jessica McClure Morales (born March 26, 1986; widely known as "Baby Jessica" in 1987) fell into a well in her aunt's backyard in Midland, Texas, on October 14, 1987, at the age of 18 months. Over the next 56 hours, rescuers worked to succes ...

. Her performance won her critical appreciation and the

. Her breakthrough came with

Mani Ratnam Gopala Ratnam Subramaniam (born 2 June 1956), known professionally as Mani Ratnam, is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema and few Hindi, Telugu and Kannada films. Ratnam has won six Nat ...

's '' Anjali'', in which she portrayed a

child, which earned her widespread critical acclaim across South India and the

. At that time, Shamlee was regarded as one of the youngest income tax assessees ever. After '' Anjali,'' Shamlee became inarguably the most sought out child artist in South Indian cinema and, thus in subsequent years, acted in many roles in all four South Indian languages. In 2009, she played her first female lead role in Anand Ranga's directorial debut '' Oye!'' (2009) alongside Siddarth with her performance receiving a mixed response. Between 2010 and 2015, Shamili studied and worked in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

and later returned to Chennai to work on the production of '' Veera Shivaji'' alongside

Vikram Prabhu Vikram Prabhu is an Indian actor working in Tamil language films who made his debut in Prabhu Solomon's '' Kumki'' (2012). He also played the protagonist in ''Ivan Veramathiri'' (2013) and ''Vellaikaara Durai'' (2014). He is the son of actor Pr ...

in 2016, which was panned by critics. Her performance also received negative reviews with indiaglitz claiming “Shamlee gets a forgettable debut as a heroine in Tamil. Her lip sync is poor and the scenes involving her do no help her either”. and sify also stating she is “as stiff as a wax statue with barely any emotion”. Shamili also acted in the Malayalam film ''

Valleem Thetti Pulleem Thetti ''Valleem Thetti Pulleem Thetti'' is a 2016 Indian Malayalam-language romantic comedy film written and directed by Rishi Sivakumar. It stars Kunchacko Boban, Renji Panicker, Manoj K.Jayan, Saiju Kurup and Shamili (in her first and only Malayal ...

'' the same year, which was also panned and received negative reviews.

Filmography

As child artist

As lead actress

References

External links

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National Film Award The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directorate ...

, - , - {{Authority control Indian film actresses Actresses from Chennai Living people Actresses in Malayalam cinema Actresses in Tamil cinema Actresses in Telugu cinema Tamil Nadu State Film Awards winners 21st-century Indian actresses Indian child actresses Kerala State Film Award winners Child actresses in Kannada cinema Child actresses in Tamil cinema Child actresses in Telugu cinema Child actresses in Malayalam cinema Best Child Artist National Film Award winners 1987 births