Sodsai Pantoomkomol

Biography

Sodsai Vanijvadhana was born on 18 March 1934 in Bangkok, Siam to Subhajaya Vanijvadhana, professor and head of the Biology Department at Chulalongkorn University, and Prayongsi Vanijvadhana (née Laksanasut). She graduated Bachelor of Arts with honors from Chulalongkorn University, and subsequently received a Fulbright scholarship to study teaching English as a foreign language in the United States. However, with encouragement from her advisor Prince Prem Purachatra, she asked to study dramatic arts instead. She enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she caught up on drama courses including acting, directing and playwriting. She was often selected for leading parts in plays, from which she became noticed, and was subsequently invited to appear on The Tonight Show, received a record offer with Liberty Records, which was released as Sondi, and appeared in Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. She transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles upon the suggestion of her advisers, to be able to pursue more career opportunities. She was then offered a seven-year contract with Fox Studios, which she declined, settling for a two-year scholarship and training program instead. During her acting career in Hollywood she was a semi-regular on ABC's Adventures in Paradise, with Gardner McKay, and also guest starred on CBS's The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour. She represented Thailand in the Miss Universe 1959 beauty pageant, where she won the Miss Friendship Award. She went by the alias "Sondi Sodsai" in her acting career because her last name "was too difficult for foreigners to pronounce."

Upon completing her studies, Sodsai returned to Thailand and became a lecturer at her alma mater, Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Arts. At the time, formal education in dramatic arts did not exist in Thailand. Sodsai pioneered the field, establishing the Faculty's Department of Dramatic Arts in 1970. She developed curricula based on the theories and practices of Western theater, and helped lay out the foundations of drama education in both tertiary and secondary institutions, as well as in professional circles. Of the initial difficulties of establishing the school, she noted in an interview of how she and her students lacked a theater in which to perform: "We were like nomads, we performed under the trees, on the verandah, in the attic. Practically wherever they allowed us."

Sodsai produced many works, writing and directing numerous plays, as well as editing, acting and composing. Her plays include Yankee Don't Go Home, Tukkata Kaew ("Glass doll"), Yot Pratthana ("Dearest"), Koet Pen Tua Lakhon ("Born a play character"), Phu Phae–Phu Chana ("Loser–winner"), Phrai Nam, Khon Di Thi Sechuan ("Samaritan at Sichuan") and her latest production Lam Di ("the Good Interpreter"), which was released in 2009. She translated and presented works of Western drama, including The Glass Menagerie and Hedda Gabler, for the Thai audience. She also directed television dramas, winning a Mekhala Award for her 1984 adaptation of Chart Korbjitti's novel Kham Phiphaksa ("The Judgement"), which she applied Western technics in directing.

Sodsai was married to Trong Pantoomkomol, former head of the Orthopedics Department at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, with three children. In recognition of her contributions to the field, Sodsai was named a National Artist in performing arts (theatrical and television plays) for 2011. Thailand's first playwriting competition, the Sodsai Award, and Chulalongkorn University's Sodsai Pantoomkomol Center for Dramatic Arts, which opened in 2011, are named in her honor. Many of her students have gone on to become key figures in the show business, and Ying Thai Magazine has called her the most influential woman in the Thai entertainment industry.