R. C. Sakthi

R. C. Sakthi Biography

R. C. Sakthi was a famous film director associated with Tamil cinema. He is best known for introducing the popular and talented actor Kamal Hassan as a lead actor in Unarchigal. But the movie was controversial for its subject and got a delayed release after 4 years. The movie was shot in 1972. The movie also marked his debut as an independent director. Since then he was associated with film scene till mid-1990s, and his last release, Pathini Penn (1993) bagged Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Film. Shakti also won state award for best dialogues for this film. Away from limelight during his last years he passed away in 2015.

He was born in 1940 in Puzhuthikulam of Ramanathapuram district, Tamil Nadu. Selvam and Lakshmi were his parents. His father worked in police department and his mother was a homemaker. Since younger days he was interested in acting and paid less attention to education. He started a drama company along with his friends. In the first stage play, he played the role of a villain. With encouragement from viewers of his village, Sakthi decided to pursue his career in films and reached Chennai. But he could get only minor roles in amateur stage plays which made his discouraged.

He later worked as an assistant to ‘Villupaattu’ Subbhu Aarumugam of the NSK troupe which opened him doors to cinema. He worked as an assistant director for a few films in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before he bagged his first film as an independent film director in 1972. He roped in Kamal Hassan to play the lead role. Kamal Hassan had earlier worked as a child actor and played supporting roles before his debut as hero in Unarchigal released in 1976. It is a soft-porn movie that faced many problems in the censor, and got a delayed release four years after its shoot in 1972. Its Malayalam remake with Kamal Hassan reprising the same role of original was released prior to the Tamil film.  

He worked with Kamal Hassan for his second film, Manidharil Ithanai Nirangala (1978) and since then they remained good friends. After doing Rajinikanth-Sridevi starrer Dharma Yuddham, he moved to low-budget films which eventually deteriorated his career graph.

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Updated: June 26, 2016