Happy Birthday Rajinikanth: 11 facts Thalaivar's fans should know

On Rajnikanth's 68th birthday, we bring you some of the lesser known and interesting facts about the Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan awardee.

Richa Barua

BANGALORE, First Published Dec 12, 2019, 1:03 AM IST | Last Updated Dec 12, 2019, 1:04 AM IST

On Rajnikanth's 69th birthday, we bring you some of the lesser known and interesting facts about the Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan awardee.

Rajinikanth's original name is Shivaji Rao Gaekwad and he was brought up speaking Marathi and Kannada.

Rajinikanth used to work as a coolie, carpenter and a bus conductor before entering the film industry.

He made a special appearance in a Bengali film titled Bhagya Debata, that graced the screens in 1995.

Latha Rangachari, Rajinikanth's wife is 8 years younger than him. The two met when Latha came to interview him for her college magazine. They got married in 1981.

Rajinikanth's Chandramukhi, directed by P Vasu, became the longest-running Tamil film in 2007. The film was a blockbuster hit and was dubbed in Turkish and German as well.

Rajinikanth has starred in eleven Tamil remakes of Amitabh Bachchan films like Deewar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Laawaris and Don among others.

First two years of Rajinikanth's career, he got only negative roles to play - of an abusive husband, a rapist, a womaniser, a pornographer, an adulterer etc, but it was in 1977 when he first got to enact a positive role in the movie Bhuvana Oru Kelvikkuri.

For his blockbuster movie Shivaji, Rajinikanth received an acting fee of Rs 26 crore in 2007. This made him the second highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie Chan.

Enthiran's success was so huge that the film was included in IIM as a case study to analyse the business of cinema and its success, in a course called Contemporary Film Industry: A Business Perspective. The course also focuses on Muthu, which became a magnum opus in Japan.