South Actress Pushpavalli never Married: We are in an era where actresses of the South Film Industry are gaining national recognition through films being dubbed as Pan India Stars. However, decades ago, many actresses from the South took a quantum leap in the Hindi industry and became the reigning queens of Bollywood. Sridevi, Rekha, Hema Malini and Jaya Prada are some of them. Do you know that Rekha’s mother was also a popular actress in Tamil and Telugu cinema?
Rekha’s mother Pushpavalli was the first actress to play the role of Sita on the big screen. She received Rs 300 for the role of Sita in Sampoorna Ramayanam, released in 1936. As his fame grew, he started getting leading roles.
Pushpavalli got married in 1940, but after 6 years, due to differences in marital life, she decided to live separately from her husband. At the same time, a new star named Gemini Ganesan made his debut in Tamil cinema with the film Miss Malini, starring Pushpavalli in the lead role.
Gemini Ganesan’s on-screen romance soon turned into real life romance as well. But at that time Gemini Ganesan was married twice, his first wife was Alamelu and the second was famous actress Savitri. Later his interest started increasing towards Pushpavali also.
Since Gemini Ganesan was already the father of 4 daughters, he was hesitant in ending his marriage with Savitri and accepting Pushpavalli as his wife. Nevertheless, their love continued to flourish and the couple had two daughters out of wedlock.
Actress Pushpavali accepted becoming the mother of two daughters from Gemini without marriage and one of her daughters is still a veteran actress. Actually, she is none other than veteran Bollywood actress Rekha. Since Rekha was born to Pushpavali without marriage to Gemini, she did not get a chance to spend much time with her father.
Rekha spent most of her life with her mother Pushpavalli. Rekha’s mother died in 1991 at the age of 65. Rekha entered the world of acting as a child artiste at the age of 12 with the Telugu film Inti Guttu. His first Hindi film Sawan Bhadon was released in 1970.