V. Chinnaiya Manrayar Ganesamoorthy, well known by his stage name Sivaji Ganesan, was an Indian actor and producer who lived from 1 October 1928 to 21 July 2001. During the later half of the twentieth century, he was involved in Tamil cinema. He was noted for his flexibility and the wide range of roles he played on cinema, earning him the Tamil moniker Nadigar Thilagam (transl. actor's pride). He appeared in 288 films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi during the course of his nearly five-decade career.
In 1960, Ganesan became the first Indian actor to receive a "Best Actor" prize in an international film festival, the Afro-Asian Film Festival in Cairo, Egypt. Many prominent South Indian cinema actors have said that Ganesan impacted their performance. He also won four Filmfare Awards in the South and a National Film Award (Special Jury). Ganesan was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest cinema honour, in 1997. He was also the first Indian actor to be awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres).
Ganesan is regarded as one of Tamil cinema's most famous figures.
After portraying Chhatrapati Shivaji in the drama Shivaji Kanda Hindu Rajyam, Ganesan gained the moniker "Shivaji." EV Ramasamy, a social reformer, gave him this moniker. Ganesan was a trained dancer in Bharatanatyam, Kathak, and Manipuri, among other classical dance disciplines.
Ganesan was India's cultural ambassador to the United States in 1962, and he was the first Indian artist to do so. On the invitation of then-US President John F. Kennedy, he travelled there.
Ganesan was recognised for his eidetic memory, which allowed him to recall images, sounds, or things from his mind. This aided him in memorising scripts quickly.
He was the first Indian actor to win an international film festival's 'Best Actor' award. For his role in the 1959 Tamil film Veerapandiya Kattabomman, he won the best actor award at the Afro-Asian Film Festival in Cairo, Egypt in 1960.
Ganesan has been involved in politics since he was a child. Ganesan formed his own political party, Thamizhaga Munnetra Munnani, in 1988, after being linked with a number of political parties. In the Tamil Nadu Assembly election, his party ran for 50 seats, but it did not fare well. Ganesan was elected head of the Tamil Nadu wing of former Prime Minister VP Singh's Janta Dal in 1989. Unlike his successful film career, Ganesan's political career was a flop.
0 Comments