The veteran superstar of Kannada cinema, Dr Rajkumar is no more. He passed away on April 12th, 2006, following a cardiac arrest.For those of us who grew up watching his movies, this is the passing of an era in the history of Kannada cinema, in the history of Karnataka state. He is undoubtedly the most popular Kannada artist of all time. What is most striking about him is not just his charismatic on-screen presence, not the acting skills, not even his gifted background singing talent. What is most striking is the incredible simplicity of his off-screen life. No flamboyance, no arrogance. So unlike many of his less-talented-but-equally-popular contemporaries.
His career spanned almost half a century, with over 200 movies! That is an incredible average of around 5 or more movies every year, starting from 1954 until 2000. What a prolific career! As I scroll through his filmography, I see an enormous range and variety of roles, so many high-quality, highly entertaining, super-hit movies! The filmographies of the best and most popular Hollywood actors pale in comparison.
Sometime after I heard the news of Dr Raj's death, I visited IMDb.com, the "Earth's Biggest Movie Database" to check out his filmography. Unfortunately, there was not quite enough information on Dr Raj's page on IMDb.com. There was some erroneous information, and not even his name was listed properly and in an easily identifiable manner.
In order to compile exhaustive information about Dr Raj's movies and to do proper justice to his prolific career on IMDb.com, I have started a Wiki project called Project Rajkumar. If you are a fan of Dr Rajkumar's movies, please do visit the home page of Project Rajkumar, and share your precious knowledge about his movies with us. The idea is that, all this knowledge will ultimately end up on IMDb.com for the benefit of many generations to come.
I hope Project Rajkumar will turn out to be Dr Raj's online fans' way of paying homage to the great actor. This is certainly far better than the mindless violence that some fans in Bangalore are indulging in.
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I was checking your Blog from Yesterday.Expected you to come up with something like this.
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I have probably seen one movie of Rajkumat but I know he is a very talented actor. What tired me and definitely all others is the violence that followed the moment after his death. The crazy pot holed people didn't even give the family time to grieve without worrying if the unruly crowd would break into their home. It was so distasteful and unfair. How some people used his death to create so much violence and death of 5 people and damage of property woth 8 crores. Was it the work of political jumpsters, was it other frustration and anti social elements but this was no way to pay respect to a person and I feel so very shameful to what happened for a couple of days post his death. And you have started some smart stuff. Great work of compling things and all. :)
ReplyDeleteTalented actor, have watched some of his movies...I was apalled to see that most of the people in the funeral procession had not even an iota of grief. There was glee and thrill written on their faces as they went on a rampage destroying property. Even Rajkumars house was not spared. His family were traumatized further by these people. I hate to say this being a Banglorean and a Kannadiga. But, am ashamed at how his so called fans made the funeral and mourning into a tsunami of vandalism and arson. Fee on them and may Rajkumars soul rest in peace.
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