Shakeela

Shakeela was hugely popular with the Malayalam film community and her male audiences loved her. She claimed that she was deluged with marriage proposals from more than 100 filmmakers and actors, at the peak of her career. A few filmmakers and film producers were said to have gone as far as naming their homes after her.

Shakeela, for the longest time, had been the center of curiosity for many, owing to very limited public knowledge about her background. Her autobiography gave a detailed insight into her early life.

Shakeela was born C. Shakeela Begum, on November 20, 1975, in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, into a middle-class family. She had six siblings. Belonging to a low-income family, her parents found it very hard to make ends meet. Her father did odd jobs and her mother was a simple homemaker.

She quit her studies as she entered her teenage and started working to support her family. However, she found it very hard to earn enough for her family. During the late 80s, she started receiving compliments about her body and face, which led her to dream about a career in the entertainment industry.

Shakeela idolized Silk Smitha, who was then at the peak of her career. She learned about how Silk made it big in the industry. Her curvy body and seductive presence allowed her to audition for many B-grade films. Shakeela was rejected initially, but slowly, as Silk Smitha’s stardom started fading, Shakeela began getting noticed by the South Indian B-grade film industry.

She started as a child artist in the late 80s. In 1986, she appeared in a number of films. These films were in various languages, such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Oriya, and Kannada. However, these films had small-scale releases in a handful of theaters.

Shakeela is said to have worked for free in the earlier phase of her career, as the producers did not seem to have money to pay her. This made her quite popular among filmmakers.

As she grew up, her demand in the industry increased, and she finally made her adult debut in the movie ‘Play Girls.’ In the film, she played the role of a the younger sister of the character played by Silk Smitha.

The film did well and marked the arrival of another star in the low-budget industry. This fame then translated into more roles for Shakeela, and by the late 90s, she became a well-known face.

Some of her most popular films of that time were ‘Jallikattu Kaalai,’ ‘Marumalarchi,’ ‘Beauty Palace,’ and ‘Captain.’ She was much in demand in the entire South Indian film industry, but she was especially popular with the Tamil filmmakers.

However, despite her growing number of films, she had not yet reached the level of success that Silk Smitha enjoyed. Somehow, the Malayalam film industry had grown to like her a lot, and as a result of this she appeared in more than 20 Malayalam films in 2001.