Saving for the rainy day
S. SHIVA KUMAR
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The best of actors have lived and died in penury. The younger breed of actors, however, are a savvier lot
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OFF -SCREEN REALITY With the little money they got, the older actors made wrong judgements. The younger ones quote their price, splurge,invest and also plan their future PHOTOS: (BOTTOM ROW) COURTESY WWW.CHITRALOKA.COM
Just the other day, my friend and I were walking down the road and saw the yesteryear comedian, M.S. Umesh driving an antique scooter. My friend, naοve guy, who was given to believe that on screen glamour was equivalent to off screen luxury, was mildly shocked. "For someone who has acted in over 300 films shouldn't he be driving a car?" he asked.
Umesh is no aberration. Look behind all the glitz and you realise that's the story of most actors - heroes, heroines and supporting actors alike. You hear horror stories about marquee names languishing in chawls penniless and obviously without a friend. In fact, in comparison to times bygone, even with all the market limitations for Kannada films, stars today are better off. If you actually set out to do an analysis of the market, measure the loss against gain, it's not surprising if you stumble upon startling facts.
It's part of cinema folklore how even the biggest icon of Kannada cinema, Dr. Rajkumar, made those extra bucks only when he started his own production house. Thanks to Parvatamma Rajkumar's foresight and business acumen, she took the reins of Vajreshwari Combines and turned it into a profitable venture. Sadly, we don't have too many of these heart-warming stories. Balakrishna, contemporary of Rajkumar, made very little of the so many films that he acted in for over five decades. He was practically in every film of those times, but that didn't mean much in terms of economy. Whatever he had, he poured into his dream project Abhiman studios, and suffered huge losses with no takers for the studio. Towards his end, Balakrishna was ill and penniless.
Kalyan Kumar's story is no different. He acted across languages and at one time even smoked 555 cigarettes, the most expensive. Times changed. He didn't have too many offers on hand. Kalyan Kumar tried his hands at various business ventures, including the hotel industry, but nothing worked. Penury was his story. So is the case of ace comedian Narasimharaju, who made people roll with laughter, but his own personal life wasn't very glorious.
Dwarakish did see good times. But his passion for the tinsel world was so overwhelming that he pumped everything back into it. He made several films, did badly, ran into rough weather and had to even sell his house and move to Chennai. He lived a life of anonymity for a couple of years, and came back wiser.
Ashwath, one of the finest actors of Kannada cinema, lives a frugal life in Mysore. He is ill, has an ailing wife and can't think of proper medical treatment. The lives of Toogudeepa Srinivas, Rajanand have been no different. Kalpana, who was considered a boon for Kannada cinema, lead the most unenviable life. She had no money and took to doing theatre. Finally, she was so disappointed with life that she put an end to it so abruptly. Shankar Nag's love for his idiom was evident in the massive, state-of-the-art Sanket studio. That it couldn't be saved is not an unfamiliar story.
Everything has changed and so have actors. They are worldly wise and don't burn up their money. If the younger generation is a wiser lot, it's also probably the background they come from. They have plush homes, drive swanky cars and are also clued in about investments. The new kid-on-the-block Ramya too knows how to plan for a rainy day. "My price depends on the budget of the film. Sometimes you even quote an exorbitant price when you don't want to work in a film." Most of sRamya's investments are in real estate and dad manages her money. However, Ramya admits that she loves shopping for clothes and accessories. "My mother tells me to invest in jewellery but I don't like decking up."
Ramya surely knows that career spans of heroines are much lesser compared to the heroes, but that doesn't trouble her at all. "I'm in the industry only because I want to be independent and also have passion for cinema," she says, in order of her preferences.
Puneet apparently is the highest paid actor in Kannada cinema. He loves splurging on electronic gadgets and going out on a holiday. But then he also has a passion outside his acting world and that is business. Like Ramya, he too says that he acts primarily because he likes to be independent. "I know I was born with a silver spoon, but I know that my father struggled for two square meals."
Puneet can't stop praising his mother Parvathamma. "She's amazing. It's not just the money aspect, but also how she handled my father's fame. What she invested in with her limited education is remarkable. She put all the money in films."
Most of Puneet's investments are on land. He is now building a hotel in Gandhinagar called RPL Residency. "We plan to build one in Mysore near the Lalitha Mahal Palace. I want it to be in my father's name." The other big investment in his new pair of jeans that cost him a whopping (?) Rs. 40,000!
Sudeep, also from a well-heeled family, one fine day decided he would be in the films. But he, unlike others of his generation, is putting his hard earned money back into films. He says how he's had to literally claw back because his first two films flopped. "I entred the film industry because I wanted fame. I would have been destroyed if My Autograph had failed. It's a shame, but nobody wants to back a sensible film."
Besides making films, he also invests in cars and plans to build service apartments, because space comes at a premium. "My father knows about real estate and I take his help."
Unlike many actors in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, who seemed to have worked with a greater foresight and a feel of the market, for most yesteryear actors of Kannada, acting was an all-consuming passion. In fact, films were an extension of theatre, from where most of them came. That's probably why we don't have instances such as the Tamil actor Jaishankar who ran an industry, K.R. Vijaya's successful chit fund (unlike our Manjula who didn't make it in the business and died a tragic death), Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi's television channels, A. Nageshwara Rao and NTR who ran theatres and studios successfully.
Most of our artistes made wrong judgements. They pumped their money into films that didn't work in the market. The other actor of our times who is known to spend all his money on films is Ravichandran. And unpredictable as it is, the film industry has spared none. There has been no escape even for Chandulal Jain, who has business in genes. Again, it was love of cinema that put him on the producer's chair. Story goes that when people got Ambarish to act promising to pay after the film, it was only years later that he actually got paid for the roles he played.
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