A 19-year-old youth with a sprouting moustache made his debut on the silver screen as a cop in Sathi Leelavathi, a film made in Coimbatore in 1936. The role was hardly noteworthy. However, 18 years later, he played the lead role in Malaikkallan. Produced by S.M. Sriramulu Naidu of Coimbatore’s Pakshiraja Studios, the film turned out be a blockbuster hit for the hero Marudur Gopala Ramachandran or MGR.
“Kalaignar Karunanidhi wrote the dialogues. The Telugu remake, Aggi Ramudu, had N.T. Rama Rao in the lead. All the three, who worked in the studio, went on to become Chief Ministers,” notes Rajesh Govindarajulu, historian and Coimbatore chronicler.
Between 1935 and 1960, filmmaking flourished in Coimbatore, largely led by two studios — Central and Pakshiraja. The buzz of ‘clap boards’ and ‘rolling cameras’ has fallen silent at Pakshiraja located on Puliakulam-Sungam Road. The sprawling four-acre property, with abundant greenery and many building units, has become a commercial space. A part of the studio, which had 30 rooms, each with an attached bathroom, a lab for processing films, and an in-house canteen that doled out special menus for artistes, has been converted into a hall that can be rented for weddings.
