KPAC Lalitha

The initials in K. P. A. C. Lalitha's screen name come from a theatre group, the Kerala People's Arts Club in Kayamkulam. Born Maheshwari Amma, she came from Aranmula and spent much of her childhood near Kayamkulam. She learnt dance as a child, was acting in plays by the age of ten and later joined the club. Her first film was K. S. Sethumadhavan's Koottukudumbam. In 1978 she married director Bharathan. She worked in Malayalam films and on stage. Her second phase in cinema began with Bharathan's Kattathe Kilikkoodu (1983), and between 1986 and 2006 her on-screen pairing with Innocent became a fixture of Malayalam comedy. Across five decades she acted in more than 550 films, Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam, Vadakkunokkiyantram, Godfather, Manichitrathazhu, Spadikam and Thenmavin Kombathu (1994) among them. She won two National Film Awards for Best Supporting Actress, one of them for Bharathan's Amaram (1991), as well as four Kerala State Film Awards and the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award (South) in 2009. She later chaired the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi. She died on 22 February 2022.