Google Doodle celebrates Sridevi on 60th birth anniversary

Search engine giant Google on Sunday (August 13) celebrated the 60th birth anniversary of Indian cinema icon Sridevi with a special doodle dedicated to her on-screen charisma.

Born on this day in 1963 in present-day Tamil Nadu, Sridevi fell in love with movies as a child and started acting at the age of four making her debut with the Tamil movie Kandhan Karunai.

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“Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Mumbai-based guest artist Bhumika Mukherjee, celebrates Indian actress Sridevi’s 60th birthday! Starring in nearly three hundred movies over the course of four decades, Sridevi made Bollywood’s sweeping dramas and comedies shine, oftentimes without a male counterpart in a traditionally male-dominated industry," said the search engine in its description of the doodle.

Sridevi learned multiple South Indian languages, which helped her to break into other film industries. Early in her career, she acted in a variety of genres across multiple film industries, including Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam. The actor gained national recognition in 1976 for K Balachander's Moondru Mudichu, co-starring cinema veterans Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan.

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Widely considered the star of Tamil cinema at the time, Sridevi’s on-screen charisma garnered attention from producers from the Hindi film industry as well. After playing the lead role in the action comedy Himmatwala, Sridevi established herself as a Bollywood icon and went on to star in hits like Sadma, Chaalbaaz, Lamhe, Chandani and Judaai, before taking a break from acting. She made a comeback in 2012 with English Vinglish, which was a critical and commercial success.

Hailed as Indian cinema's first woman superstar, Sridevi was honoured with Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award given by the government of India. Sridevi forever made her mark on the film industry by charting new avenues for women to take on leading roles in Indian cinema and her last film Mom (2017) was also an effort in the same direction.

The actor passed away in 2018 in Dubai at the age of 54.

(With agency inputs)