Heroines appearing for one song isn’t something that had begun a few years ago. It had been in effect in films for a long time.
 
Even before ‘Silk’ Smitha and others had become the leading attractions in films, there were some who did their versions of the ‘Item’ numbers, but these dances were classical dance based and there wasn’t anything vulgar about it.

Lalitha-Padhmini-Raagini were sisters who used to give special performances in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films during the black and white film era. But, there was something special about these performances- they themselves used to bring the cameras, lights, dresses and dancers for these song sequences.

When they weren’t doing films, they used to present dance dramas on stages. These plays were based on epics like Mahabharat and Ramayana.

There are films that did very well just due to their performances.