Ambika (actress)

Ambika is an Indian actress known for her work predominantly across the entire southern film industry and in several tele serials. She has also acted in an English film (Indian-American), to date. She was one of the top South Indian heroines for more than a decade from 1976 to 1989. Her younger sister Radha was also an actress. They acted together in a number of South Indian films during the peak of their career. The sisters runs a movie studio called 'ARS Studios', which they converted into a hotel complex in 2013.

Personal life
Ambika was born to Kallara Kunjan Nair and Sarasamma at Kallara, Thiruvananthapuram. Her mother Kallara Sarasamma was Mahila Congress leader during 2014. She has two younger sisters, Radha and Mallika, and two younger brothers, Arjun and Suresh.

Ambika married an NRI, named Premkumar Menon in 1988. The couple has two sons and was settled in the United States of America. However, they divorced in 1996. Later, she got remarried to actor Ravikanth in 2000, which also ended in a divorce in 2002. She is currently settled in Chennai with her sons.

Career
Ambika started her career as a child artist in Malayalam cinema in 1976 with the film Chottanikkara Amma and later starred as a heroine in more than 200 South Indian films. Her career as a heroine started with the Malayalam movie Seetha, which was released very late in her career. But with films such as Neelathaamara and Lejjavathi, she became a busy actress within a few years not only in Malayalam, but also in Tamil and Kannada.

Ambika made her debut in Tamil in 1979 with the film Chakkalathi. Ambika's role as a young girl in K Bhagyaraj's Tamil film Andha 7 Naatkal grabbed the eyeballs of movie buffs. In 1984 she acted in Naan Paadum Paadal directed by Sundarrajan which had Sivakumar, Mohan and Pandiyan in lead roles. Ambika shot to fame with Kaakki Sattai (1985). At the zenith of her career she costarred with her sister Radha in Kadhal Parisu (1987), where both actresses demonstrated their acting prowess in the roles of two sisters, both with strong but conflicting personalities.

In 1986, she acted in the commercially successful Malayalam movie Rajavinte Makan, which starred Mohanlal. It was Ambika who got paid more than Mohanlal in the movie Rajavinte Makan. Ambika was a busier and more popular than Mohanlal at that time. She also acted with him the following year in another box office hit Irupatham Noottandu.

The 1980s were the golden era for Ambika, as she acted in over she acted in over 200 movies in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada, and most of the films were box office hits. Ambika did many films with the leading actors of her time such as Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, Vijayakanth, Sathyaraj, Mammootty, Mohanlal, Dileep, Shankar, N. T. Rama Rao, Krishna, Krishnam Raju, Dr. Rajkumar, Ambareesh and Chiranjeevi.

After getting divorced, she returned to India from the U.S. Later in the year 1997, she started acting again in the films Periya Manushan, Simhada Mari, and Maa Nannaku Pelli. She acted in Vikraman's project Mariyadhai (2009), in which Vijayakanth played the double roles of father and son. Unlike Ambika, her younger sister Radha never returned to movies after marriage and got completely engrossed in supporting her husband's business in different locations, across all Indian cities.

She has acted in many advertisements. She is a designer too. She has also judged many reality shows. She has been playing the lead role in the serial Mrs. Hitler aired on Zee Tamil TV, and also made a special appearance in the role of a senior government officer named Vanitha in the serial Anbe Vaa which aired on Sun TV. She made a cameo in the television serial Mangalyam. She also took on the role of judge in the reality show Drama Juniors.

Filmography
In order of languages in which she acted the most to the fewest films.