Karthik Raja turns 52 today
Karthik Raja, the eldest son of Isai Gnani Illaiyaraja, was born on 29 June 1973. He showed an early interest in and affinity to music. At the age of 13 he played the keyboard for the song Kannukkum from the film Ninaikka Therintha Maname. He also played the keyboard for the soundtrack and background score […]
Remembering the Iconic “Kaviyarasu” Kannadasan on his birth anniversary
Kaviyarasu Kannadasan was born on 24 June 1927 in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, and has more than 5000 lyrics, 6000 poems and 232 books to his credit. He was the first lyricist to win a national award for Best Lyricist – for the 1969 film Kuzhanthiakaga. Kannadasan once embraced the Dravidian atheistic view but was fascinated […]
The Legendary M.S.Viswanathan who reshaped Tamil Film Music
M.S. Viswanathan, the composer of music for more than 800 films and dozens of independent albums was a musical genius who changed the course of Tamil film music. He did not know how to read or write music, but composed some of Tamil cinema’s best loved songs, embracing western influences without losing sight of a […]
Kavin – Finding Fame After Many Challenges
Kavin shot to fame when he played the lead role in the sleeper hit Dada, but he had been making his mark in increasingly visible ways for almost a decade. After making his acting debut in the TV series Kanaa Kaanum Kaalangal, he went on to play supporting roles in the TV shows Thaayumanavan and […]
Devayani – Still making her mark in Tamil Cinema
Devayani (real name Sushma Jayadev) was born in Mumbai on 22 June 1974. After a brief foray into Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam films, she made her Tamil debut in a significant role in K.S. Adhiyamaan’s Thottaa CHinnungi before striking fold with her first demale lead opposite Ajithkumar in Agathiyan’s national award-winning film, Kaadhal Kottai. The […]
Vijay turns 51 today
Joseph Vijay was born on 22 June 1974 to star couple – Director SA Chandhrasekar and singer Shoba. Shoba began her singing career with the famous song Maharaja oru Maharani from the Sivaji Ganesan starre, Iru Malargal. Vijay was a talkative, naughty and energetic child but that changed drastically after the death of his younger […]
Nelson Dilipkumar turns 41 today
Nelson Dilipkumar was born on 21 June 1984. He was to have made his directorial debut in 2010 with the film Vettai Mannan with T.R. Silambarasan, Jai, Deeksha Seth and Hansika Motwani in the cast, and Yuvanshankar Raja scoring the music. The film was halted after more than half was canned. There was an unsuccessful […]
Remembering the Legendary Panju Arunachallam
Panju Arunachallam was born on 18 June 1941. He apprenticed under his uncle, the famous poet and lyricist, Kannadasan. In 1962, he penned his first lyric – Manamagalle Marumagalla from the S.S. Rajendran-Vijayakumarie starrer Sarada which marked the directorial debut of K.S. Gopalakrishnan. He produced his first film – the Sivaji Ganesan-Savitri Ganesan starrer, Ratha […]
History of Tamil Cinema – Episode 11
In this episode, we digress briefly to recap the highlights of the first 10 episodes in this series. For further details on what is presented in this summary, readers are advised to read the full article by clicking on the link. The beginning: 1897 to 1936 1897 – Films first screened in South India. 1905 […]
Exploring the Enigma Called Illaiyaraja – Episode 11
We return to this series on the genius of Maestro Illaiyaraja and, as has been evident from Episode 1, there is an intense focus on the songs and music produced in his first ten years in the film music industry. The reason for this particular focus would be outlined later in this series. Illaiyaraja was […]