He was just six, when he acted in his first film ’Kalathur Kannamma’. As a child artist, he acted in a very few films, but all with the then super stars like M.G.R., Sivaji, Gemini, S.S.Rajendran and Sathyan. And in his very second film he was in a dual role. Born in a family of lawyer dad and brothers, Kamal was let off for art, it seems. He skipped school, learnt classical dance, acted in Avvai Shanmugham’s drama troupe, became an asst. choreographer and then asst. director, and began to act in small roles in movies during his late teens. He was given some important roles in K.Balachander’s films.
His early films portrayed him as a playboy, always dancing with a peculiar style with a mike in hand, and if you see them now, you can find the thirst to achieve, in him. To act in meaningful movies, he was lucky to have plenty of malayalam friends, who launched him in their movies. ’Kanyakumari’, ’Vishnu vijayam’ and ’Rasaleela’ gave new breaks to him , and even in Tamil ’Aboorva Ragangal’ opened a new door for him. Romance between a young boy and an elderly lady was the hot story of this musical. In many of his early films, he was acting in such kind of films where he was either seduced by a sex starved widow or by an elderly woman, to name a few -’Rasaleela’, ’Eetta’ ’Unarchigal’ etc. In ’Vaanambadi’ he was Sheela’s 7 year old son, and in ’Eetta’ he was having hot sex with her.
After acting in innumerable films, his big break came in Bharathiraja’s debut movie, ’16 vayathinile’. He played a crippled village idiot along with Sridevi and Rajini. In the same year1977, Balu Mahendra launched his first film as a director. The film was ’Kokila’ in Kannada and in b&w, and in this film he had sexual relationship with the maid servant. His stint in experimenting with make up must have started in 1978 with Cinematographer A.Vincent’s ’Vayanadan Thamban’(mal), which was very crude to today’s standards. In the same year ’Maro charitra’ was released in Telugu, and this K.Balachander movie smashed all records of box office. The romance between two youths from different state background was later remade in Hindi also as ’Ek Dhuje ke liye’ which was his grand entry to Bollywood as a hero. I remember, for a Deepavali, his four films got released on a single day. Two of the films ’Sigappu Rojakkal’ by Bharathiraja and ’Aval Appadiththan’ by Rudraiyya were noteworthy. The first was a crime thriller with a suave killer in Kamal, and in the next he was a documentary director with sympathy towards women. It was a b&w film with Rajini and Sripriya, and one of the earliest film in Kamal’s journey towards quality cinema.
’Varumaiyin Niram Sigappu’ was another Balachander film, in which he played an unemployed youth, in search of job in N.Delhi. In 1981, to realise his dreams, he entered into film production with a remarkable movie-’Raja Parvai’. He played a blind violinist, and selected the best talents as his crew. Singeetham Srinivasa Rao/director, Barun Mukerjee/Cinematographer and Ilayaraja/music director, and of course Kamal was very much involved in the scripts and dialogues.The same Kamal acted in ’Sakalakalavallavan’ the super hit film, which gave Tamil filmdom a great turn- towards cheap tastes! Every frame of the film was trash, but enjoyed by the common man, who had just tasted good parallel movies from directors like Mahendran.
Acting in 10 trashes, at least he had some conscience to give his 11th film as a quality one. So we had the opportunities to get Sagara Sangamam, Moondram Pirai, Swadhi Muthyam and in 1987 ’Nayagan’ the desi don from Manirathnam. This film lifted the mantle of Kamal, with an excellent unit to back him and ’Nayagan’ is history. ’Pushpak’ was also a high range comedy, and an experiment in film making, without a single dialogue. After the super duper hit ’Apoorva Sagotharargal’, a film enjoyed by all, he went to Malayalam to enact an author backed role in ’Chanakyan’, a brilliant crime thriller. The 90s saw Kamal going/growing more serious starting with a beautiful comedy ’Michael Madana Kamarajan’ in which he played four different roles. ’Guna’ was another brilliant film in which he played a mentally retarded, who kidnaps his ’Abirami’.
The great Malayalam director Bharathan, cinematographer Sriram, Ilayaraja and Thespian Sivaji Ganesan joined hands with Kamal to bring out that classic ’Thevar Magan’. If you want to know its greatness just compare it with ’Virasat’ its Hindi version. ’Mahanadhi’ can be pointed as one of his best films. The story narrates the incidents in the life of a widower who shifts to the city, in a very touching and realistic fashion. The songs were added assets thanks to Ilayaraja. You could have noted that his directors are not discussed here, because I sincerely believe that Kamal must have ghost directed most of his best films. How can one believe Santhanabharathi directed ’Mahanadhi’ or Sundar.C directed ’Anbe Sivam’?
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