Vishnuvardhan

Who was Vishnuvardhan?

Sampath Kumar, popularly known as Dr. Vishnuvardhan, was a prominent Indian film actor. He was called "The Phoenix of Indian Cinema". He has acted in over 200 Kannada, five Hindi, five Telugu, nine Malayalam and three Tamil films. He was very instrumental in shaping the Kannada identity. He adopted the name Vishnuvardhan at the insistence of Puttanna Kanagal, who directed his maiden film, Naagarahaavu that gave him the recognition of the 'angry young man of Kannada cinema'. He proved to be extremely versatile by playing variety of roles, be it the character of an Action Star or The Romantic Hero, Comedy roles or the serious ones, name it and he has done it all. He could handle all the roles with great ease. He was a Martial Art expert and in an interview to The Hindu, he had said that it was the era of Bruce Lee and it was only Kamal Haasan and himself who had learnt Martial Arts in his generation.

A poll conducted in Karnataka by the very popular English News Channel CNN-IBN in 2008 revealed that 'Dr.Vishnuvardhan was the most popular star, the Kannada Film Industry has ever seen' and this was in the 36th year of Vishnu's career in the industry which proved that he rubbed shoulders with the new generation actors and still was considered as an actor who had no competition whatsoever. The poll also revealed that Rajinikanth, Chiranjeevi and Mohanlal were the most popular stars of the Tamil, Telugu and the Malayalam film industries respectively.