Chennai: Born on October 1, 1928, V. Chinnaiya Manrayar Ganesamoorthy was a famous Indian actor and producer. He is better known by his stage name Sivaji Ganesan and had played an active role in Tamil cinema since the 1950s.
He was given the Tamil nickname Nadigar Thilagam which can be translated as 'the pride of actors' for his versatility and the various roles he played in Tamil cinema.
Ganesan had acted in a total of 288 films in a period of about 50 years of his career which included films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi.
In the year 1960, the Afro-Asian Film festival which was held in Cairo, Egypt had presented him the 'Best Actor' award, making him the first Indian film actor to win an award in an international film festival.
Many South Indian film actors have opened up about looking up to Ganesan as their role model.
In his career, Ganesan has won four Filmfare Awards South and a National Film Award (Special Award).
He was also conferred the highest honour for films in India, the Dadasaheb Palke Award, in the year 1997.
He later became the first Indian actor to be made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Ganesan was so well known in his profession that the Los Angeles Times described him as the 'Marlon Brando' of the South Indian film industry upon his death.
On July 21, 2001, Ganesan passes away after he lost his battle to respiratory problems.
Also Watch: