M N Nambiar – the legend behind Tamil cinema’s most famous “villain”

The face of villainy in Tamil cinema was, for several decades, M.N. Nambiar. With over eight decades in the film industry, M.N. Nambiar was an institution who stood alongside greats like Sivaji Ganesan and MG Ramachandran.

He was born in Kerala on 07 March 1919 and made his debut in 1935 at the age of 16 in the film Baktha Ramadas where he played a comedy role.

In 1950 he played a negative role in Ellis R Dungan’s last directorial in Tamil, Manthiri Kumarie which was penned by M. Karunindhi.

He later graduated to lead actor in the 1952 thriller, Thigambara Samiar directed by TR Sundaram of Modern Theatres fame. He became the first Indian actor to play 11 roles in this film.

Less than three years after the release of Thigambara Samiar, Nambiar landed a role in the English film, The Jungle directed by Hollywood’s William Berke. This dual language film was later dubbed into Tamil as Kaadu.

Nambiar then returned to playing the villain and was great at driving audiences into an intense rage because of his clashes on screen with their favourite actors. He was the perfect nemesis for MGR and Sivaji Ganesan and was the number one choice for most directors looking for a villain.

His role in K.Bhagyaraj’s Thooral Ninnu Pochu once again brought out his talent as an actor and this brought in a wide variety of roles.

One of the most remarkable aspects of MN Nambiar is that he was the complete opposite of the many villain roles he portrayed. He lived a simple, virtuous and spiritual life and had an unstoppable sense of humour. He was a strict vegetarian and a teetotaller. He was also a steadfast devotee of Lord Ayappan and made a pilgrimage to the sacred Sabarimalai Temple more than 65 times, earning the title, Maha Guruswamy. It was therefore no accident that when P Subramaniam was planning to make a film based on Lord Ayyappan, his first choice for the role of the Swamy was M.N. Nambiar.

Nambiar enjoyed an excellent off-screen relationship with the likes of MGR, Sivaji Ganesan, Jayalalitha, Manorama, P. Vasu, Cho, MS Viswanathan, K Bhagyaraj and was liked, respected and even revered by everyone in the film industry.

His death on 19 November 2008 was a tremendous loss to the film industry.