Rajinikanth -The Kollywood King

By: Daliya Daspurkayastha
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
His unique style is characterised by a trademark gesture - flipping a cigarette in the air and catching it in his mouth; and rotating his glasses a number of times. He is a man possessing a unique style, a distinguished get up and dialogues delivery. People laughed at his postures but at the same time enjoyed it too.

Rajinikanth, the Superstar of Tamil film industry is the unofficial king of Tamil cinema. The actor, originally named Shivaji Rao Gaekwad was born as the fourth child to a Maharashtrian couple - Ramabai and Ramoji Rao Gaekwad in Karnataka, on December 12, 1949.

The actor had to serve as a bus conductor in the Karnataka State Transport Corporation in Bangalore owing to his family's poor financial condition. It was around that time that Shivaji Rao became interested in acting. He moved to Chennai and joined the Madras Film Institute. He got his first break in film titled Aboorva Raagangal by K.Balachandar. It was Balachandar who changed his name to Rajinikanth.

Rajinikanth then performed many negative roles, and owing to his unique style people loved to hate him even in negative characters. It was Thalapathy and Batsha that brought him to the pinnacle of glory. Finally it was the film Bhairavi that turned him from anti-hero to hero. People also loved to see him as a stunt hero. Once in a while he did movies like Aarulirundhu Arubadhu Varai or Johny, which gave us the opportunity to see him as an action hero.

His style of acting, free flowing comedy and stunts helped him in achieving continuous hits over a long period of time. In spite of being a Maharashtrian by birth, he has not done a single film in his mother tongue till date. He has acted in many other languages such as Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi and also one English film. However, Rajinikanth got more recognition in Tamil films and later on went on to become a Tamil superstar. In 80's, 90's and 2000 he lead fire to the Tamil silver screen.

The films that brought name and fame to him are Moondru Mudichu, Anthuleni Katha, Pathinaru Vayathinile, Gayatri, Chilakamma Cheppindi, Avargal, Ilamai Oonjal Aadukirathu, Bhairavi, Shankar Saleem Simon, Thai Illamal Naan Illai, Johnny, Dharma Yuddham, Alavuddinum Athbutha Vilakkum, Murattu Kaalai and Johnny/Jani, Ellaam Un Kairaasi, Billa, Anbukku Naan Adimai, Thillu Mullu, Kazhagu, Garjanai, Black Cobra, Pokkiri Raja, Agni Sakshi, Sivappu Sooriyan, Moondru Mugham, Thambikku Entha Ooru, Kai .He completed his 32 successful years in films in the year 2007.

The actor reduced the number of movies towards the beginning of 2000. His comeback film was his home production Baba that released amid fanfare in 2002. Unfortunately the film was not up to the mark. Rajnikanth became extremely careful in selecting his roles after the failure of Baba. The superstar returned to the silver screen in 2004 after a hiatus of three years with the film Chandramukhi. The film as we all know was a stupendous success.

It is being rumoured that in the soon to release movie Sivaji - The Boss directed by S.Shankar, Rajinikanth was paid Rs. 16 crore. Apparently, Rajnikanth is one of the highest paid actors in the entire Indian film industry, leaving behind bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Shah Rukh Khan, and Aamir Khan. He is also tagged as a highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie Chung.

Apart from movies, Rajinikanth left his mark in politics as well. In the 1996 Assembly Elections in Tamilnadu, Rajinikanth supported the DMK - TMC coalition and helped them to defeat the ruling AIADMK party.

Rajinikanth was awarded with every category of awards. This legendary actor was awarded Padma Bhushan in the year 2000. Asiaweek also named him as one of the influential persons in South Asia. He bagged twice the Filmfare Best Actor Award, South.

As for his personal life, he married Latha in 1981. They were blessed with two daughters- Aishwarya and Soundarya. His elder daughter Aishwarya married well-known Tamil actor Dhanush in 2004.

Rajini in 32 years of his glorious career played all types of role. He tried comedy, action, negative, and hero like role, and hence was never tagged as a particular category of actor. It is owing to his potential as an actor that he can manage to cope up with any character given to him and his specialty lies in the point that he started his career through playing in villainous roles and later on became successful in playing the central character or hero like roles. It is very hard for an actor to become successful in central character who started his career playing in villainous roles. This proves his quality and skill he has in acting.

There are very few celebrities who apart from making lot of money also manage to win the hearts of their fans. Rajinikanth is like a demi god to his fans, as is obvious when they conduct poojas on huge cutouts of Rajinikanth just before his film releases to ensure his success. His fans collect opening day ticket stubs of his movies and even buy them at exorbitant prices. Rajinikanth today is 58 but is still trying his level best to entertain his fans by playing different roles.

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