Sarojadevi

Radhadevi

Sarojadevi is an Indian actress who has acted in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi movies.

 She acted in around 200 films in over six decades.

Saroja Devi was born name is Radhadevi in Bangalore, Kingdom of Mysore (now Bengaluru, Karnataka) on 7 January 1938.

Her father Bhairappa worked for the Police Department, and her mother Rudramma was a homemaker. 

She was their fourth daughter. 

Her grandfather, Mayanna Gowda wanted her to be given away for adoption, but her father refused to do so. Bhairappa asked her to learn dancing, and encouraged her to take up acting as a career.

 A young Saroja Devi was accompanied often by her father to studios and he would patiently tie on her salangais and massage her swollen feet after her dancing stints. Her mother gave her a strict dress code: no swimsuits and no sleeveless blouses, which she followed for the rest of her career. She was first spotted by B.R. Krishnamurthy when she was singing at a function at the age of 13, but she declined the film offer.