She was born in Nagercoil, erstwhile Travancore State, now in Tamil Nadu in 1940. She was born in Nagercoil to Madhavan Nair and Sathyabhama, she left them early in life to study dance with her aunt Saraswathi in Chennai, alongside her first cousins the Travancore Sisters, Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini . With the sisters, she learned to dance and studied different forms of dance, such as Keralanadanam, Kathakali, and Bharathanatyam. She went with her sisters for an all Indian tour. Sukumari was noticed by a director when she went to the sets of a film with Padmini, and she debuted in the lead role in the Tamil film Or iravu. She has appeared in the various black and white era of Malayalam films such as Chettathi, Kusruthikkuttan, Kunjali Marakkar, Thacholi Othenan, Yakshi, Karinizhal, and others. She later became famous acting in Priyadarshan's various films such as Poochakkoru Mookkuthi, Oodarathuammava Aalariyam, Boeing Boeing, and Vandanam. Like Manicheppu Thurannappol and Karyam Nissaram, she was also seen in various films directed by Balachandra Menon. In later years she played a major role in Nizhalkkuthu (2002) directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. She has worked in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Hindi movies and used her voice in all languages without using dubbing actors.
Sukumari married director of Tamil film A.Bhimsingh in 1959. He died in 1978. Sukumari had a son, Suresh Bhim Singh, who was a doctor by profession.