Kamal Haasan is an Indian film actor, screenwriter, producer, director. He has won several Indian film awards, including four National Film Awards, the most number of National Awards for any actor. He is also known for having starred in the largest number of films submitted by India in contest for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He has also featured in films as a songwriter, playback singer and choreographer.
Background
Haasan was born in the town of Paramakudi in the Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu, to a criminal lawyer named D. Srinivasan and Rajalakshmi, who was housewife. One source says that his parents originally named him Parthasarathy. In the interview given to Karan Thapar, Kamal Haasan said his father was Sanskrit literate. Kamal Haasan was the youngest of four children, the others being Charuhasan, Chandrahasan and Nalini Raghu. His father was a martinet. He wanted all his sons (Chandrahasan, Charuhasan, Kamalahaasan) to study and do well. The two elder brothers followed their father’s example and studied law. Kamal spent his childhood learning everything except staying focused on his studies.
Career
He debuted as a child artiste in the film "Kalathoor Kannamma" (1960), which was released in the year 1960. Since then, he has starred in nearly 200 films in the major Indian languages - Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi. He has been a part of the film industry for 52 years, as of 2012. His journey in cinema has seen him don various roles - from child artiste, to romantic lead to one of the most respected and revered heroes of the film industry today.
Following a seven-year hiatus from films, Haasan returned to the industry to be a part of the technical crew of films. However, he played a few supporting roles instead. As an adult, his first film role was in the 1970 film Maanavan, in which he appeared in a dance sequence. He also did a supporting role in the film Annai Velankani in which he was the assistant director. He appeared in K.Balachander's 1973 film Arangetram. He played the antagonist in Sollathaan Ninaikkiren and Gumasthavin Magal. His first serious role was in K. Balachander's Aval Oru Thodar Kathai (1974). His last role as a supporting actor was in 1974, in the film Naan Avan Illai.
His second malayalam movie was the 1974 film Kanyakumari. He won his first regional Filmfare award for this film. He appeared in the Malayalam film industry with Kanyakumari and Raasaleela. He played the lead actor in the Tamil films Apoorva Raagangal, directed by K.Balachander, for which he also won his first Filmfare award in Tamil.[12] The plot of the film revolved around a young man in love with an older woman and won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil. Haasan learned to play the mridangam for this role.
The late 1970s was a period that saw Haasan's continued collaboration with K. Balachander, who cast him in many of his social-themed films. In 1976, Balachander cast him as a womaniser trying to woo many women in Manmadha Leelai which was followed by Oru Oodhappu Kan Simittugiradhu, which won him his second consecutive Regional Filmfare (Tamil) Best Actor Award. Later, Kamal Haasan appeared in the drama Moondru Mudichu, another Balachander film. Avargal (1977) was a film about women's liberation, for which he learnt the art of ventriloquism.[13] The film was also remade in Telugu as Idi Katha Kaadu (1979) with Haasan repeating his role. 16 Vayathinile won him his third consecutive best actor award, where he appeared as a village bumpkin. In 1977, he starred in his first Kannada film, Kokila, which was the directorial debut of another friend and mentor, Balu Mahendra. The same year, he acted in a Bengali film, Kabita, a remake of the Tamil film Aval Oru Thodar Kathai. In 1978, he debuted in the Telugu film industry as a lead actor with the cross-cultural romantic film, Maro Charithra directed by K. Balachander. His fourth consecutive Filmfare award came with Sigappu Rojakkal, an anti-hero thriller in which he played a psychopathic sexual killer.
In the Telugu film Sommokadidhi Sokkadidhi, he played dual roles, the musical entertainer. He also appeared in Ninaithale Inikkum, a snake horror film Neeya. Other films include Kalyanaraman. During this time, Haasan acted in 23 Malayalam films. The film Ponni Kuttavum Sikshayum, Satyavan Savithri and Nirakudum , Agni Pushpam and Kathirunna Nimiksham , Yaetta , Vayanadhan Thamban and Madanolsavam . For the movie "Yeatta" he won his second Filmfare Award for Best Malayalam Actor. Film "Madanolsavam" was dubbed in Hindi as Dil Ka Saath Dil and in Tamil as Paruva Mazhai. At the end of this period, he had won six regional Best Actor Filmfare Awards, including four consecutive Best Tamil Actor Awards.
Haasan then started working on his fourth directorial venture titled Vishwaroopam, which released in both Tamil and Hindi. Vishwaroopam is a 2013 bilingual spy thriller film written, directed and co-produced by Haasan who also enacts the lead role. The film has Rahul Bose, Shekar Kapur, Pooja Kumar, Andrea Jeremiah and Jaideep Ahlawat in supporting roles. Produced simultaneously in Hindi as Vishwaroop, the film features soundtrack composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, with lyrics by Vairamuthu and Haasan himself for the tamil version and Javed Akhtar for the Hindi version. Vishwaroopam won two National Film Awards, one for Best Production Design and one for Best Choreography at the 60th National Film Awards. Haasan stated that the sequel Vishwaroopam 2 was already planned and several sequences had already been shot featuring Andrea Jeremiah in a more prominent role.
Religion
Haasan, despite being born into a Brahmin family, has declared himself as an atheist; many of his films, notably Anbe Sivam and Dasavathaaram, both written by himself have featured anti-theistic views. Kamal Haasan, has also been mistaken for a Muslim due to the Arabic surname, and was famously stopped for his name at the Toronto Pearson International Airport in 2002. It is widely believed that the name originated from a friend of his father, Yaakob Hassan, a Muslim freedom fighter who spent time with Kamal Haasan's father while imprisoned by the British. However, Kamal Haasan clarified in an interview with Karan Thapar in BBC that his last name 'Haasan' is, in fact, of Sanskrit origin from the word 'Hasya', which was his father's wish and that the Yaakob Hassan connection was highly publicized by the media and was only a "story"
Politics
Hassan has refrained from politics in spite of several people from the film Industry taking the plunge in Politics. Kamal Hassan is basically considered by most as a person with Left-leaning or Independent political alignment. He once said, the kind of politics he would indulge would get him killed in 365 days.
Views
Kamal Haasan is the first Tamil actor to convert fan clubs into welfare organisations, and is actively involved in several social service activities through the clubs under the banner Kamal Narpani Iyakkam. (Kamal Welfare Association) His fan clubs are involved in organising blood and eye donation drives and donating education materials to school students.[69][70][71] He received the first Abraham Kovoor National Award for his Humanist Activities and Secular Life in 2004. He has turned his fan associations into social service organisations. He was also the project ambassador of Hridayaragam 2010, a fundraiser to set up an orphanage for HIV/AIDS-affected children. In September 2010, Kamal Haasan launched a children’s cancer relief fund and presented roses to children with cancer at Sri Ramachandra University in Porur in the suburbs of Chennai. He has also pledged to endorse consumer products, social causes and use the money for social service. Haasan won 50 lakhs in Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi in March, 2013 and said the prize money would be used for the philanthropic activities of 'Petral Thaan Pillaya', which supports the HIV affected kids.