Vijayalakshmi Vadlapati, known popularly as Silk Smitha, was an Indian film artiste who worked predominantly in the South Indian languages. She entered the industry as an extra actress and first got noticed for her role as “Silk” in the 1979 Tamil film Vandichakkaram. She became the most sought-after erotic actress in the early 1980s. In a career spanning 17 years, she appeared in over 450 films in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi languages. On September 23, 1996, she was found dead in her apartment in Chennai, apparently having committed suicide.