Soundarya Biography

Soundarya was an Indian film star born on 18 July 1972 in Mulbagal. The actress was originally known as 'Soumya' and used to act in Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi films. Soundarya died on 17 April 2004 in a plane crash, when she was campaigning near Bangalore for a political party. She was born to eminent Kannada movie producer and writer K. S. Satyanarayanan and was brought up in Bangalore. Soundarya was married to her childhood friend and distant cousin G. S. Raghu, a software engineer, on April 27, 2003.

True to her name, Soundarya was very sought-after actress of 90's and presented her acting skills over 100 movies. Almost of her films were Telugu. The talented actress turned producer in later career phase and her movie 'Dweepa' won Silver Lotus Award. Apart from being the producer, Soundarya played the main lead in the movie. The film won 'National Film Award for Best Feature Film' and actress grabbed the title 'Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actress' and 'Best Actress' from Filmfare. She has been winner of Filmfare Awards for seven times for outstanding acting performances by her. Soundarya bagged Nandhi Awards for 'Best Actress' category from Andhra Pradesh government for three times.

Soundarya got her first break when she was in the first year of MBBS from her father's friend. It was for 'Gandharva', a Kannada flick in 1992. 'Manavarali Pelli' was initial Telugu movie of Soundarya. After doing the film 'Ammoru', the actress left her studies.

Telugu movies done by Soundarya made her feel the taste of success and fame. She did plenty of Telugu films like 'Pavitrabandhanam', 'Pelliichesukundam', 'Annaya', 'Chudalani Undhi' and to list a few. Her pairing with Venkatesh was hot favorite among the audience. The beautiful actress was also seen with other eminent actors like Chiranjeevi, Srikanth, Nagarjuna, Vineeth, Prabhu deva, Abbas, Rajendra Prasad, Balakrishna, Vikram Mohan Babu, Vinod kumar, J. D. Chakravarthy, etc. The lead roles were offered to the actress from directors like Kodi Ramakrishna, Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao, Kranthu Kumar and Krishna Reddy.

She acted in some Tamil movies like 'Padayappa' and 'Arunachalam' with superstar Rajinikanth and 'Kaadhala Kaadhala' opposite veteran artist Kamal Haasan. In her Malayalam movies, her co-stars were Mohanlal and Jayaram. 'Sooryavansham' was the Hindi flick in which Soundarya appeared in.

'Apthamitra' was the Kannada flick, in which Soundarya appeared in, prior to her death. For this movie, she achieved Filmfare Award for 'The Best Actress' category. The award was received by her mother. This last movie of Soundarya ran for the entire year.

Being interested in public welfare, the actress managed an orphanage in Bangalore. During her lifetime, the generous actress donated money to several educational institutions.