Manjula Vijayakumar's Death: Rajinikanth, Vijayakanth Pay Last Respects

Several members of the Tamil film fraternity paid their last respects to actor Manjula Vijayakumar, who died of renal failure in Chennai on Tuesday (23 July). She was 59.

Rajinikanth and his wife Latha, Vijayakanth, Ramya Krishnan, Meena, Poornima Bhagyaraj, Lashkmi, Sarathkumar and his wife Radhika, Aishwarya Dhanush, Soundarya Ashwin, music composer Harris Jeyaraj, director KS Ravi Kumar, Prasanna, Sneha, comedian Koundamani, singer Krish and his actor-wife Sangeetha, YG Mahendran, comedian Senthil, Manobala, Latha and Sanghavi are among others who paid homage to Manjula at her residence Alapakkam in Chennai. [To look at the images of actors paying their respects to Manjula, click here].

Manjula was admitted to Sri Ramachandra Medical College hospital in Porur, Chennai, following a stomach injury. She breathed her last at the hospital on Tuesday morning. "She had a fall a week ago, and that must have caused a clot in the abdomen. We only found that out three days ago, and admitted her to hospital. It was completely unexpected, even for us," Arun Vijay, Manjula's step son, told The Hindu.

The yesteryear actress began her acting career as a child artiste in "Shanti Nilayam". But, she got her big break as a heroine in the1971 film "Rickshawkaran", co-starring MGR. She continued to get lead roles in films of popular actors including Sivaji, NTR, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Sobhan Babu, Gemini Ganesan, and Vishnuvardhan. She has also worked with superstar Rajinkanth and Kamal Haasan.

During the 80s period, Manjula began appearing in character roles. The actress has featured in more than 100 films in three of the south Indian languages including Tamil, Telugu and Kannada.

The sudden death of the veteran actress has shocked the entire Tamil film world. Several stars including Kushboo, Radhika, Aishwarya Dhanush, Sarathkumar and Vijay Yesudas took to Twitter to condole her death.

Manjula's cremation is scheduled to happen on Wednesday at around 1 pm at the Porur crematorium. She is survived by her actor-husband Vijayakumar and daughters - Vanitha, Preetha and Sridevi.