Jayalalithaa was just three years old when she started training in classical dance; know ten interesting things about her life

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa died of cardiac arrest on Monday night at Apollo Hospital, Chennai.

Jayalalithaa was a leader of the masses and huge crowds paying respects to her are instrumental of the fact.

Let us take a look at ten interesting facts about the AIADMK supremo:

1. Jayalalithaa learnt Indian classical dance Bharatnatyam when she was just 3 years old.

2. She was forced to join Tamil Film Industry 'Kollywood' by her actress mother Sandhya (Real Name-Vedavathi) at the age of 15.

3. Growing up, she had a fan-girl crush on MAK Pataudi. She’s on record as saying that she used to go for matches with her binoculars “just to look at Pataudi and Pataudi alone.” She also had a crush on Nari Contractor, and collected photographs of Rock Hudson.

4. During her movie career, she fell in love with already married actor Shoban Babu. She was caught watching him through binoculars from her residence.

5. Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR, a leading Tamil film actor, director, producer, and politician, who also served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu successively for three terms, not only formed a high successful onscreen pair with Jayalalithaa, but also introduced her into politics.

6. Jayalalithaa was an avid reader of English books, she carried some of them whenever she travelled.

7. Jayalalithaa was good at writing besides being an avid reader. She was known to have authored at least one novel. She was a regular writer in the yesteryear Tamil weekly by name “Thai”.

8. Jayalalithaa holds the record for having the maximum silver jubilee hits by a Tamil actress in her career. 80 hits of 85 Tamil films, besides her 28 films in Telugu were all silver jubilee hits. Her one film in Hindi, ‘Izzat’, was also a hit.

9. When she became Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, she was given a cheque as her first salary. She said she had “abundant sources of income and did not need the salary.” On being told that she should receive salary as a public servant, she accepted Re 1 as salary.

10. She holds the record for hosting the “largest wedding banquet/reception”. In 1995, during her first term as Chief Minister, she organized a lavish wedding for her ‘foster son’ Sudhagaran. The Guinness record book notes that over 150000 guests were invited to the wedding at a 50-acre ground in Chennai.