Ranjan (actor)

Ranjan (actor) Biography

Ranjan was a south Indian film actor associated with first generation of talkies. He also worked in Hindi and other language films. Ranjan is best known for the Tamil movie, Chandralekha, the magnum opus of S. S. Vasan released in the year 1948. He shared screen space with T. R. Rajakumari and M. K. Radha for this historic fiction film. This expensive film was later made to Hindi version, and dubbed to many languages including English and earned appreciation from audience and critics alike. He entered the film scene with 1941 movie Ashok Kumar.

Ranjan was a man of multi-talents. He was also known as a dancer, musician, playwright, journalist, critic, scholar, aviator and athlete, painter and magician. Whenever he gets idle time, he spent it usefully to learn a new form of art. He used to paint in the balcony of his bungalow in Union Park, Bandra to relax himself. He was also known as a philanthropist and educationalist who built a school for harijan’s in Chennai, inaugurated by C. Rajagopalachari.

His real name is Ramanarayana Venkataramana Sarma. He was born on 2 March 1918 in Madras, British India. He completed M.Litt degree from Madras University. Since college days he participated in college plays. On one such occasion he was spotted by Veppattur Kittu, an employee of Gemini Studios who suggested his name to filmmaker P. G. Raghavachari. Thus he entered the film scene with 1941 movie Ashok Kumar, a folk tale connected to Emperor Ashoka's son Kunal. Ranjan played the role of Buddha in this movie.

It was followed by Rishyasringar where he played the title role. In his early movies, his name was credited as R. Ramani. B. A. Jithen Banerjee of Newtone Studio rechristened him as Ranjan. Apart from his film career, he also played the role of a journalist. He edited an art journal entitled, Natyam and also established a School of Music and Dancing. 'Madari', 'Bahut Din Hue', 'Suvarn Sundari', 'Nishan', 'Magic Carpet', 'Chor Chor', Chor Ho To Aisa' etc are his noted Bollywood works.

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Updated: March 20, 2016