Trivia

She has acted in 140 feature films, and also in a television serial, "Selvi." (2005).

After acting in films from 1979 to 1989, she took a long break to get married and raise two sons, but she still worked in films by dubbing voices.

Director K. Balachander so liked her performance in "Marocharithra" (1979) that he cast her in 22 more films, including "Agni Satchi," "Kalyana Agathigal," and "Achamillai Achamillai."

She was the 162nd girl who auditioned for the heroine role in "Marocharithra" (1979), when director K. Balachander decided she was the right actress for him.

Saritha was discovered by the famous director K. Balachander who cast her in the heroine role for the Telugu film "Marocharithra" (1979) opposite Kamal Hassan, which became a huge, memorable hit.

"Julie Ganapathy" is the Tamil remake of the Hollywood hit film, Misery (1990), and Saritha put on a lot of weight to play the role that was originated by the Oscar winner, Kathy Bates. But when the film bombed and she didn't win any awards, she decided to lose the weight in order to get acting work.

Of the 141 films she has done till 2006, she claims that her three best films are: `Marocharithra," "Thanneer Thanneer" and "Agnisakshi."

She claimed that she almost got fired on her first day on the set of "Marocharithra," as nobody was happy with her performance. Later, she was briefed on her role, and director K. Balachander was so happy with her performance that he rewarded her with chocolates.

She has acted in all four South Indian languages: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam.

She won Tamil Nadu Government's Best Actress Award three times- 1979-1980, 1982-1983 and 1988. She is also the recipient of Kalaimamani Award in 1982-1983 for the film "Agnisakshi."

Her sister is actress Viji Chandrashekhar.

She is fluent in several languages, including Telugu (her mother tongue), Tamil, and English.

She hails from a Telugu-speaking family from Munipalli village in Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh, India, and her big break came playing a Telugu girl in the blockbuster Telugu film Maro Charithra (1978). She was also raised in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, where Tamil is the primary language, thus most of her subsequent films and television serials were in Tamil.

Her real name is Abilasha, but her first film director K. Balachander told her to change it to Saritha, because he was afraid that audiences would mispronounce her real name.

Her father's friend is writer Ganesh Patro. He was the first one who saw star potential in her, even though she had no training and experience as an actress. He asked her to audition for the film he was writing titled Maro Charithra (1978) after filmmaker K. Balachander rejected 161 actresses for the lead role. She landed the role and became a star.