Rajnikanth is one of the best actors ever seen in the history of Indian film. This veteran figure of theater is best known for his Tamil and Telegu films. His talent and charismatic appearance on the screen made him very popular in Tamil Nadu state of India. Rajni is also best known for some of his styles and dialogues in different movies. Rajnikanth, being at his 57, is still acting as the central character of movies which is a rare case in any film industry of any country. Later, this year (2006), he got the RS 16 core for his recent movie named Sivaji The Boss which gives him the prestige of being the highest paid Indian actor among any other film industry in India. Not even in bollywood, an artist gets such a big amount. The highest paid bollywood star Amir Khan gets around RS 7 crores. The most important, he also bagged the second position in terms of the highest paid actors in Asia after Jackie Chan.
Rajnikanth, the unofficial king of southern film, was born to Ramabai and Ramoji Rao Gaekwad as their fourth child in Karnataka, India on 12 December, 1949. His real name is Sivaji Rao Gaekwad which was changed by the director K. Balachander, the director of Rajni’s first movie, Apoorva Raagangal (1975). The financial position of his family was not very good. He lost his mother when he was 5. His father was a police constable. Before entering in the film career he experienced the harsh reality of life as he had to do some odd jobs including as a bus conductor. His first school was Acharya Patasala in Bangalore and then he also got admitted at the Vivekananda Balak Sangh, an institution under the control of Ramakrishna Mission. It is a bit interesting that though Marathi is his native language, he has not starred in any Marathi movie in his entire film career.
Rajni got admitted in Madras Film Institute taking help from one of his friends and in 1974 he could complete a basic acting course when he was 25. With the experience of this course he set out for a big journey towards the film industry. With his acting power and uniqueness, he could make a distinct position in the southern films.
His debutant film was ‘Apoorva Raaganga’ in Tamil language directed by K. Balachander. Earlier in his career he was used to play in the supporting role and villainous roles. After four years of entering the film career, in 1979, he first got chance to act in a positive role in ‘Bhuvana Oru Kelvikkuri’. In Kannada language his first movie was ‘Katha Sangram’ which was his second movie in his career. In the ninety’s his Mutu, Basha was very successful and in those movies some of his legendary punch dialogues are still seen to be uttered among the fans. In the film ‘Mutu’ his dialogue “When I will come, or how I will come, nobody will know, but I will come when I ought to come” and in the ‘Basha’, "If i say it once, I've said it a hundred times” are still remembered.
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Besides these southern movies he also acted in some films of Hindi and Bengali languages. For his only English movie named ‘Bloodstone’, he got Best Achiever Award in Cinema Express Tamil Nadu.
His last movie ‘Chandramukhi’ earned RS 50 crore at the box office which is highest in Tamil Nadu. In this movie Rajni got RS 10 crore. Before ‘Chandramukhi’, his movie ‘Baba’ could earn 20 crore at the box office which was not successful considering Rajni’s standard.
Rajni was not an actor for a particular segment of fans. In his glorious career he acted in different kind of movies in different roles. For instance, in his 100th movie named ‘Sri Raghavendra’ he played the role of a Hindu saint. His comedy movie ‘Thillu Mullu’ was very successful. He also extended his feat in some of the action based family movies such as Velaikkaran and Manidhan etc. It might be his best quality that he can manage to cope up with any character given to him and his specialty as an actor lies in the point that he started his career through playing in villainous roles and later on he became successful in playing in 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.
Another thing that I think most important to measure his greatness is that he came into light through Tamil, Telegu and kannada movies which are belongs to Tamil Nadu states and due to the language problem it is not possible to make a Tamil movie universal in all over the India. It is true that movies can be translated in other languages but initially the target spectators and fans of these films are not beyond the Tamil Nadu. So, one does not need to be Einstein to understand that the market and investments of Tamil movies are less than that of Bollywood. However, Rajni and producers of his movies do not go for that calculation and both producers and Rajni are happy to make a deal of such a high amount which is still a dream-like amount in Bollywood. It is Rajni who himself can be a great advertisement of any southern movies where people do not bother about the director or actress; it is all about Rajni. Rajni is the best example of measuring how influential an actor can be for a film industry.
In his personal life, he married Latha in 1981. This couple has two daughters- Aishwarya and Soundarya. Rajni was also involved in politics on the urge of fans but could not be successful as he is in film industry.
This legendary actor was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2000. He was also named as one of the influential persons in South Asia by Asiaweek. He got Filmfare Best Actor Award, South twice.
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