Radha

Tamil cinema

Radha started her career with Bharathiraja's Alaigal Ooivathilai. Gopurangal Saivathillai proved her acting talents. She played a powerful role as a second wife of Mohan and matched the national award winner Suhasini (who played the first wife) in this movie. Radha played a small role in Tik Tik Tik, a Kamal Haasan starrer. Tik Tik Tik played a significant role in her career. She then starred in a number of Kamal Hassan movies like Oru Kaithiyin Diary, Thoongathey Thambi Thoongathey, Kathal Parisu and Jappanil Kalyanaraman. Her close friend and mentor, actress Suhasini Maniratnam helped her in improving her makeup and took special care by voluntarily opting to hairdress Radha whenever they acted together.
Her major break came from her mentor Bharathiraja. Radha was cast a movie opposite Sivaji Ganesan. Muthal Mariyathai released in 1985. After Muthal Mariyathai, she got a number of challenging roles including in movies like Nyaya Tharasu.
Her sister Ambika is also a very popular actress. They acted together in films like Enkeyo Ketta Kural, Kadhal Parisu, Anna Nagar Mudhal Theru, Idhaya Kovil and Vellai Roja.
The two sisters were at the zenith of their beauty and fame when they acted in Kadhal Parisu. They put up electrifying performances that easily overshadowed even Kamal Hasan, the senior actor paired opposite them. Ambika and Radha managed their careers very carefully, seldom directly competing in the same turf. They used the Tamil movie industry to launch their careers but spent only a minority of time in Tamil once their success and fame spread across the south. Ambika acted in more Kannada and Malayalam movies, quickly getting to the top-two spots in both markets. Ambika and Radha were both very selective about taking up roles in Tamil movies once they became successful, rejecting many offers and only pairing with top actors and directors. It was very rare to see both the sisters in the same movie after their early years in Tamil. It was a dream-come-true for fans when Kadhal Parisu hit the screens, especially since the sisters played the roles of very glamorous and highly desirable women.

Telugu cinema

She acted in her first Telugu film with Sobhan Babu in Mr. Vijay . Her notable films in Telugu include Yamudiki Mogudu, State Rowdy, Raamudu Bheemudu, and Agni Parvatam. She has acted in around 16 films with Chiranjeevi, three films with Balakrishna and worked with all major heroes like NTR, ANR, Krishna, Shoban Babu and many more. Her glamour roles were brought out by K. Raghavendra Rao and A. Kodandarami Reddy.

Kannada cinema

Radha has done many Kannada films. She acted with veteran Vishnuvardhan and actress Lakshmi in Soubhagya Lakshmi, a remake of the Hindi film Maang Bharo Sajana. It in turn is a remake of a Telugu movie. She has done films with Ravichandran. In 1991, she did the movie Ranachandi with co-actors Sharat Babu, Ramesh Bhat, Mukhyamantri Chandru and Sudhir. In the film, she played a cop with Sharat Babu as her husband and Mukhyamantri Chandru as the villain. She had many stunts and fight sequences. It was a big hit in Kannada and is still remembered by Kannada movie-goers.

Malayalam cinema

Radha acted only in a few Malayalam films, the most notable being K. G. George's state award winning film Irakal (1986). Her performance as Nirmala is widely regarded as one of the best in her career. She produced the Malayalam film Ayitham (1987) in which she played the lead role. She played significant roles in Sathyan Anthikad's Revathikkoru Pavakkutty (1986) and P. G. Viswambaran's Innathe Programme (1991).

Radha hails from Kallara in Thiruvananthapuram District in Kerala.
Radha Nair and her husband R.S. Nair, son Vignesh Nair, daughters Thulasi Nair and Karthika Nair have settled in Mumbai. For the past 20 years they have owned a chain of restaurants in Mumbai and two hotels called UDS in Kovalam at Kerala, which have won the best coastal beach resort award. They also own a restaurant in the UK named "Rock and Role Kitchen" (RRK).
Her sister Ambika is also an actress. Her daughter Karthika Nair started her career as an actress with the Telugu film Josh and went on to do Makaramanju and Ko.

Radha was spotted by director Bharathiraja and was cast as a teenager in Alaigal Oivathillai in 1981 opposite newcomer Karthik.