Lakshmi & R. S. Manohar Movies Together List — 5 Films

The shape of the work

The 1970s account for 80% of everything they made together. The 1970s belonged to Nootrukku Nooru; the 1980s to Raja Rishi. Lakshmi acted in every film; R. S. Manohar acted in all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Director A. P. Nagarajan cast Lakshmi opposite R. S. Manohar in 'Nootrukku Nooru' (1971) because he needed a heroine who could match Manohar's booming stage-trained voice. Lakshmi was just 18 and had to project her lines across noisy sets — Manohar personally rehearsed with her for a week before shooting began.
• On the set of 'Agathiyar' (1972), Manohar would deliberately flub his lines in the first take to make Lakshmi laugh and break her nervousness. She later said that trick helped her relax into the mythological genre, which she had never attempted before.
• Lakshmi and Manohar shared a running joke: every time they finished a film together, Manohar would gift her a small brass lamp. She collected five of them over 14 years, and kept them on a shelf in her Chennai home until she moved to the US in the 1990s.
• Lakshmi once told a magazine: 'Manohar sir never treated me like a junior artiste. He would say, "You are the queen on screen, I am just your servant." That made me stand taller in every scene we did together.'
• Their pairing in 'Thedi Vandha Lakshmi' (1973) was so well-received that the film's producer, K. Balaji, immediately signed them for a second project together — but that film was shelved after Manohar suffered a heart attack on set. The unfinished footage was later destroyed in a studio fire.
• In 'Raja Rishi' (1985), their last film together, Manohar played a blind sage and Lakshmi played his caretaker. She had to guide him physically through every scene because his costume included thick eye coverings. Off-camera, she would hold his hand and whisper directions — the reverse of their first film, where he had guided her.