Nagesh - The Champion of Actors

In close to a millennium since cinema found its way as the premium entertainment media for Tamil’s few have left their indelible mark as the Champion of Actors, Nagesh. Here we take a look at some of the Comedy King’s successful combos with superstars who held him high in their esteem and were inspired by him.

Nagesh - KB

Old timers say that it was a pleasure just to see Nagesh and KB interact as they were so close even to the extent of exchanging choice curse words to each other. ‘Server Sundaram’, ‘Neerkumizhi’, ‘Ethir Neechal’ and ‘Major Chandrakanth’ among others cemented Nagesh’s position as the ultimate tragic-comedian.

Nagesh - MGR

The Makkal Thilagam gave equal space to Nagesh in many movies, amongst which ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’ and ‘Anbe Vaa’ standout. Later, after a long fall out Nagesh again joined MGR in his directorial magnum opus of that time ‘Ulagam Suttrum Valiban’.

Nagesh's leading ladies Sachu & Manorama

As a hero Nagesh has paired opposite the top actress of his time K. R. Vijaya in ‘Anubavi Raja Anubavi’ but it was Sachu and Manorama, who did maximum films as his love interest. The Manorama-Nagesh combo rocked in ‘Anbe Vaa’, ‘Anubavi Raja Anubavi’ etc and with Sachu who can ever forget the cult classic comedy ‘Kadhalikka Neramillai’.

Nagesh with the Black and White Heroes

Nagesh enjoyed playing the parallel lead or the sidekick with most of the Black and White era heroes such as Gemini Ganesan,Muthuraman Jai Shankar, Ravichandran, Sivakumar, AVM Rajan and Vijayakumar to name a few.

Nagesh with the 80s heroes

Prabhu in ‘Raja Kaiya Vacha’, Karthick in ‘Gopura Vasalile’, Vijaykanth in ‘Cooliekaran’, Sathyaraj in ‘Makkal En Pakkam’, Sarathkumar in ‘Cheran Pandian’ and Arjun in ‘Rhythm’ have shared screen space with Nagesh.

Nagesh with Modern era heroes

It can be said that both Vijay and Ajith are lucky to have starred with Nagesh in ‘Poove Unakkaga’ and ‘Poovellam Un Vaasam’ respectively. Similarly Nagesh has acted as Simbu’s grandfather in ‘Saravana’, Madhavan’s in ‘Minnale’ and Dhanush’s foster father in ‘Kadhal Kondein’.

Nagesh - Rajini

Superstar Rajinikanth considers Nagesh as one of his role models and has collaborated with him in ‘Thillu Mullu’, ‘Padikadhavan’ and ‘Maaveeran’ in the color era and also many others in the black and white period. Nagesh was recreated using CGI in the Thalaivar movie ‘Kochadaiyaan’ directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth.

Nagesh - Kamal

It can be said that Kamal, who reveres Nagesh virtually forced him from retirement by giving him a meaty role as the villain in ‘Apoorva Sagodharargal’ and repeated him in most of his later day films, ‘Michael Madana Kamarajan’, ‘Vasool Raja MBBS’, ‘Panchathanthiram’, ‘Kadhala Kadhala’, ‘Avvai Shanmugi’ and the legend’s last movie ‘Dasavatharam’.

Nagesh-Sivaji

The Nagesh-Sivaji combo is perhaps the most formidable in the history of Tamil cinema as evidenced in the timeless classics ‘Thiruvilayadal’ in which they portrayed Dharumi and Lord Siva and their immortal Vaidhy and Sikkal Shanmugam in ‘Thillana Mohanmbal’. Nagesh played Sivaji’s son in two classic films ‘Vietnam Veedu’ and ‘Enga Ooru Raja’ and their lighter vein comedies ‘Galatta Kalyanam’ and ‘Moondru Deivangal’ are favorites even today.