Actor and Politician
Actor and Politician
After dropping
out from college Ambrish was back in full swing with his old friends in
Mysore. One of his best friends was a certain Sangram -Singh , son of a
famous filmmaker in Kannada film industry. Sangram's brother Rajendra Singh
Babu{now a leading director-producer in the Kannada film industry} was
also a close acquaintance of Ambrish.
Screen-Test
In the golden era of the 70s movies, "Puttanna Kanagal" was the name, which spelt magic in the Kannada film industry. A maker of several big hits, he was respected by critics as well as the masses. He was known as a man who could even make a stone emote! He was a real master of the medium and artistes and producers alike feared his wrath when he was not satisfied with a particular shot! In 1971, Puttanna was hunting for new faces to cast in his new movie "Nagara Havu".
Ambrish's good friend , Sangram suggested his name for a test much against his wishes. When the day of the screen test dawned, our man went into hiding and poor Sangram was left desperately hunting for him!!!
The audience
identified him as the Shatrugan Sinha of the south because of their physical
similarity and he did settle as the cigarette flicking, smart , mid-seventies
prototype anti-hero.
Then came
a break and a change !!!
Throughout all these eventful changes the one unchanged, constant thing about Ambi was his playful , care-a-damn attitude towards everything in life including his zooming career. Here was a true -blue Gemini{born May 29th, 1952}, not a person you could easily pin down ! He was a compulsive gambler, loved racing, cards, fast cars and often used to say that films were only a passing hobby and not a profession for him !
Then the trend of villains turning into heroes started. Audiences started rooting more for the anti-hero than the goody-goody heroes. It was the day of actors like Vinod Khanna, Shatru, Rajinikanth . And Ambrish too became a hero with a film titled "Inspector Amarnath" . But he first tasted success as a hero in a film directed by his old , close friend Rajendra Singh Babu .The year was 1980 and the film was "Antha" , a record-breaking hit.
A new kannada film super-star was born and he followed up this success with other hits like "Chakravyuha" and other films. He acted in a lot of good, bad and mediocre films in this phase but his most memorable , well remembered films were still the ones he did with his mentor, Puttanna, who repeated him in several other films -;"Ranganayaki", "Shubamangala", "Masanada Hoovu etc. {The last mentioned film fetched him the state's Best Actor award.} His personal favorite portrayals are "Ranganayaki" and "New Delhi", [an offbeat film by Malayalam director Joshi]
Around the mid eighties, Kannada film -goers demi-god was still the ageless, evergreen hero Dr. Raj Kumar. If you went by numbers he still was no.1 till 10 ! But slowly even Ambrish and Vishnuvardan also had gained a place in the audiences hearts. Vishnu was the romantic , dashing hero whereas Ambi was the angry, action hero. But as mentioned earlier his interests were always diverse and acting alone did not encompass his whole life. He still maintained his zest for life and his free , seemingly unencumbered life style was the envy of many of his friends and colleagues like the present Tamil superstar Rajnikanth who openly admires him and states that Ambi is the only man under the sun he envies and calls "Guru"(meaning teacher or boss!!!)
Whatever his lifestyle , Ambrish's career was still on the upswing. Audiences loved the rough-talking , soft-hearted heroes he portrayed, which in a way actually defined the person he was. His inability to say no to people in need , his large hearted generosity and his hospitality made him the darling of fans and friends alike. Slowly it dawned on people that this hero-worship transcended his success in films . Fans loved him regardless of his films , whether they were hits or not did not matter, because The Man as a caring human was a hit ! This made a lot of his friends in the political circle sit up and watch him with new eyes and maybe the early foundation of his political interests were started then.
His popularity and charisma were further confirmed when at the request of the then Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao , he went on an extensive campaigning tour with Mr.S.M.Krishna[Dy.CM at that time]. The number of crowds he pulled was hitherto unheard of, for any political meeting. Though the party [Congress-I]lost the assembly elections that year Ambrish's undeniable mass popularity was unchallenged and didn’t go unnoticed by the political bigwigs.
At the same time being new to this field he wasn’t prepared for the intense jealousies, hypocrisies and back-stabbing, which are the usual trade -marks of politics all over the world. His first betrayal came in the form of a person very dear and close to him for the past 18 years.
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