Potpourri of titbits about cinema - T. S. Baliah

T. S. Baliah – an excellent performer

T. S. Baliah, born in the year 1911 in Tirunelveli, started his career as a stage artiste of Madurai Balagana Drama Company of ‘Yadaartham’ Ponnusamy Pillai. He made efforts to enter cinema while continuing to perform on the stage. And, he got his entry into cinema through ‘Sati Leelaavathy’ in which he donned the role of the villain. Then followed ‘Ambikapathy’ in which MKT was the hero. Most of his following films proved his talents as a villain. Invariably, he was the villain almost in all the P. U. Chinnappa-starrers. Occasionally he was the hero, Modern Theatres cast him as the hero in their film ‘Chitra’, pairing him with K. L. V. Vasantha and he was the hero in ‘Verum pecchalla’ (1956) also in which his heroine was Padmini. He had acted in more than 200 films, mostly as villain. But he proved his talents as a character artiste also. Some of his unforgettable films are – ‘Vellaikkaari’, ‘Orr iravu’, ‘Rajakumari’, ‘Madurai veeran’, ‘Mohini’, ‘Pudumai pithan’, ‘Thaaykuppin thaaram’, ‘Bagdad thirutan’, ‘Kaathavarayan’, ‘Anbu’, ‘Thookkuthookki’, ‘Nalla veedu’, ‘Thenum paalum’, ‘Thangaikkaaka’, ‘Thillaanaa Mohanaambaal’, ‘Thiruvilaiyaadal’, ‘Kaathalikka neramillai’ and ‘Bama vijayam’. He had three wives – Padmavathy, Leela and Navaneetham. He had seven sons and seven daughters. Raghu (Junior Baliah), Saibaba, Udaya Chandrika and Manohari, his heirs have entered cinema. Baliah died of heart attack at the age of 61 years on 21-12-1972.