Vijayakanth’s Journey: From Shampoo To Jewellery Salesman To Actor-Politician

Versatile Tamil actor Vijayakanth aka Captain passed away today in Chennai at the age of 71. He was a successful actor and also a people’s leader by entering into politics and starting his own political party Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK). However, it was not an easy journey. He went through a lot of ups and downs in his life. His life and career was a roller coaster ride. Here is the touching and inspirational journey of the legendary Vijayakanth.

From selling a shampoo product in Kerala to working as a jewellery salesman (1970s), Vijayakanth initially did a handful of odd jobs before starting his career as an actor. During his struggling days in films, he was rejected because of his “dark” colour. His original name was Vijayaraj and it was changed to Vijayakanth. It wasn’t easy for him, but Vijayakanth had not given up.

At the age of 27, he tried his luck in movies. In 1979, he acted in a negative role as a villain. Though his performance in the films was registered, most of his initial films were failures at the Box Office. And he finally succeeded and there was no looking back. In 1984, he had got 18 releases in a year and created a record. He had acted in three shifts a day to complete his films. He acted in over 150 films and retired from acting in 2015.

Meanwhile, Vijayakanth’s old associates recalled the memories. RS Mohandas, the owner of a popular theatre, shared his memories of Vijayakanth from before his acting career took off. Thiruvananthapuram had three theatres showing Tamil films, and Vijayakanth frequented them to watch movies. He was also a great fan of the late Malayalam actor Prem Nazir, never missing any of his films.

Another person who knew the actor from the 1970s mentioned that even after achieving stardom, Vijayakanth remained the same person when he visited, unaffected by fame.