Kaviyoor Ponnamma

"Mother to all actors" was how Kaviyoor Ponnamma came to be described, so closely did mother roles follow her. She was only 20 when Thommente Makkal (1965) cast her as the mother of the older stars Sathyan and Madhu, and her many films as Mohanlal's mother drew particular acclaim. Born on 10 September 1945 in Kaviyoor near Thiruvalla, the eldest of seven children, she spent much of her childhood in Ponkunnam. Music came first. She took singing lessons from the age of five and made her singing debut at 11, introduced under the stage name she kept for life. At 13 the Kerala People's Arts Club cast her as the heroine of its play Mooladhanam, directed by Thoppil Bhasi. Her first film was Kudumbini, in which she played the title role, a mother of two. Over more than six decades the Malayalam film and television actress worked in about 700 films, besides TV serials, commercials and a few playback songs. She appeared in Priyadarshan's Thenmavin Kombathu (1994). She won the Kerala State Film Award for Second Best Actress four times, in 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1994, and her other honours included the PK Rosy Award in 2015. Her younger sister, Kaviyoor Renuka, was also an actress. Kaviyoor Ponnamma died in Kochi on 20 September 2024, aged 79.