K. Shankar

K. Shankar Biography

K. Shankar was a veteran film director and editor associated with south Indian film industry. He has directed movies in all south Indian languages, apart from Hindi and has directed around 80 movies. He directed many Bollywood movies in the 1960s and 1970s and with mid-1970s he fully concentrated on to Tamil and other south Indian language movies. Shammi Kapoor -Sadhana Shivdasani starrer musical - Rajkumar is one of his major Bollywood hits. He directed the same pair for the 1969 movie, Sachaai and 1974 movie, Chhote Sarkar also. Bharosa starring Guru Dutt, Rajesh khanna starrer Shehzada, Sunil Dutt starring Jhula, apart from Parde Ke Peechey, Bandagi, Raaja etc are his Bollywood works.

He directed three chief ministers - NTR, MGR and Jayalaithaa. He directed N. T. Rama Rao for the movie Bhookailash and Jayalalithaa for Gowri Kalyanam, while he directed MGR for the movies, Adimaipen and Kudiyiruntha Koil. He directed devotional films such as "Thai Mookambigai" and "Varuvan Vadivelan” towards his last years. Malayalam movie – Nakshatratharattu (1999) starring Shalini and Kunchakko Boban was his last release as a film director. He last appeared for a public function to receive State Government's Raja Sandow award from Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, a few days before his death in 2006.

His full name is Kunnesscri Shankar. He was born on March 17, 1926. He started his film career as a film editor with AVM studios at Chennai before moving to direction. He edited a few Hindi movies too in the early 1950s – Ladki, Sangham etc. A Sinhalese movie, "Doctor" marked his directorial debut. Since then he has directed around 80 films in 5 Indian languages including Hindi. Aalayamani, Paadha Kannikkai, Panathottam, Andavan Kattalai, Gowri Kalyanam, Kudiyirundha Koyil etc are some of his noted Tamil movies as a film director and editor.

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Updated: April 24, 2016