Sridevi with co-star and friend Rajinikanth on stage

13 years her senior, Rajinikanth and Sridevi were friends and colleagues for the longest time-- perhaps Sridevi was even closer to him and his family than even Kamal Haasan (with who she had a rather volatile relationship believe it or not!). 

Its funny how both their careers took off from the same Tamil film back in 1976; the "twisted" drama Moondru Mudichu. The classic film marked Sridevi's first leading adult role as a heroine, and Rajinikanth's first major role in Tamil. Released on 22 October 1976, the film was a huge hit and critically acclaimed. K Balachander, a mentor for both, changed the lives of all three stars in different ways. Tamil cinema owes a great debt to the filmmaker who enhanced the narrative of Indian cinema and brought actors to the forefront, who became oversized superstars later. The fandom of the three is... well, not possible to replicate again. But the roots of all three derives from drama; they were performers first, stars later. Today, new gen wants fame and all its paraphernalia and not work for it. Rant on that later... 

There's an over simplified meme and image of Sridevi floating on the net for decades - Sridevi acted as Rajinkanth's mom at age 13 - which is staggeringly ignorant of what the complexity of the narrative was offering. But then, the net is not one for nuance...