A Bangalore bus conductor became Tamil cinema’s superstar
Shivaji Rao Gaikwad, born 12 December 1950 in Bangalore to a Marathi family, reinvented himself as Rajinikanth. Across five decades and about 170 films in Tamil and other Indian languages, his mannerisms and punch lines built a cult following few actors anywhere can match.
His father Ramoji Rao Gaekwad was a police constable; ancestors traced to Pune district, Maharashtra. After school jobs that included coolie work, he became a Bangalore Transport Service bus conductor while still acting in Kannada playwright Topi Muniappa’s mythological plays. K. Balachander cast him small in the 1975 Tamil drama Apoorva Raagangal as Srividya’s ex-husband—an age-gap story that courted controversy yet earned critical praise and launched the screen name that would dominate South Indian marquees.
Early parts were villains; warmer leads followed in Bhuvana Oru Kelvi Kuri (1977), Mullum Malarum, and Aval Appadithan. In 1978 alone he had roughly twenty releases across Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Vanakkatukuriya Kathaliye introduced an entry song that later became a Rajini trademark. He openly modeled some remakes on Amitabh Bachchan vehicles. Mani Ratnam’s Thalapathi (1991) brought major critical acclaim; Suresh Krissna collaborations Annaamalai (1992) and Baashha (1995) delivered huge box office, the latter long topping Tamil grosses and fixing his antihero-to-savior persona.
After a hiatus, Chandramukhi (2005) became the highest-grossing Tamil film to that point; Shankar’s Sivaji (2007) was the first Tamil title into the ₹100 crore club. Honors range from India’s national cinema prize to eight state awards from Tamil Nadu, plus Nandi, Filmfare, and Maharashtra citations. Sunglasses flips, cigarette flips, and clipped one-liners turned a former conductor into South India’s most bankable mythic hero, with a fan culture that treats premieres almost like festivals.
Source: Rajinikanth
