DEBOLINA ROY
One of Rajinikanth's films in the 1980s was among the first films in Tamil cinema to be presented in 70mm widescreen, thus offering viewers a much larger visual experience, a daring move for South Indian films at that time. He made it possible for Tamil cinema to be advanced
Though Rajinikanth is the king of Tamil films, he was born as Shivaji Rao Gaikwad to a Maharashtrian family and was brought up in Bangalore, where he learned Kannada and Marathi before he ventured into films.
The very famous and now almost inseparable title "Superstar" was not his original idea - a distributor named Kalaipuli Dhanu was the first to use it in the publicity materials for one of his early solo films, and from then on, the name was used.
Before films, Rajinikanth worked as a bus conductor with the Bangalore Transport Service and even did odd jobs like carpentry and portering; a journey so inspiring that it’s included in some Indian school studies.
During the height of his popularity, fans would throw coins at the theatre screen when Rajinikanth appeared! The zeal was so great that cinemas had to request fans to cease because coins were damaging the screens.
After the failure of his first few films, Rajinikanth was thinking of quitting the film industry. It was only after directors encouraged him not to give up that he turned into a phenomenon.