Kaviyoor Ponnamma is a Malayalam film actress. She won the Kerala State Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1971, 1972, 1973, and 1994.
Ponnamma was born in Kaviyoor village, near Tiruvalla to a conservative upper-class family. She had to face many hardships from the conservative Hindu society in Kaviyoor during her initial life as they were opposed to women from Hindu families taking up acting as a career. She has mainly acted as a mother figure to most of the Malayalam actors. She is sometimes referred to as "Mohanlal's Mother" because she has acted as his mother in a many of movies. The mother-son role of Mohanlal-Ponnamma has been accepted well by the audience.
We do not feel that we are acting and we do not plan. Reactions come spontaneously.
The name Kaviyoor Ponnamma brings to mind a comforting mother, dressed mostly in white saree. Few in this generation know that she has acted as the mother of Satyan and Madhu, many decades back. The movie was Thommande Makkal. Although younger than Thilakan, she had acted as Thilakan's mother in Periyar. The actress says about Ponnamma-Thilakan combination:
People used to love our combination and I used to get many letters appreciating the roles'
She has acted with Prem Nazir, Sathyan, Madhu, Jayan, Soman, Sukumaran, Vincent, Raghavan, Mammootty, Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Jayaram, Dileep and Prithviraj.
She has done a tele-film directed by Viji Thamby for Amritha TV.
Having stayed at Chennai for 37 years, Ponnamma is now settled in Aluva. Her husband M.K. Mani was a film producer. Their daughter is now in Chennai and son-in-law a professor at the Michigan University.
