Gemini Ganesan

Chennai, March 22: Gemini Ganesan, who ruled Tamil cinema in the 20th century along with Sivaji Ganesan and M.G. Ramachandran, died today.

He was 85 and had been ill. Gemini, as he was popularly known, is survived by wife Alamelu aka Bobji, seven daughters and a son.

Out of his more than 200 films, just two were in Hindi ? Devdaa and the Meena Kumari-starrer Miss Mary, which had the famous song raat ke musafir, humko zara bata de?.

If Gemini dominated regional cinema for nearly 50 years, daughter Rekha reigned over the Hindi film industry in the late seventies and eighties. Outside the south, she was a bigger name than her father.

Rekha, who is shooting in Kullu Manali, could not come for the funeral this evening.

She was his daughter from his second marriage ? with Telugu star Pushpavallai. He also had a third marriage with another filmstar, Savithri. Some years ago, he was living with his secretary but later went back to his first wife. Savithri and Pushpavallai have passed away.

Another of Gemini?s daughters is Dr Kamala Selvaraj, a gynaecologist in Chennai and an expert in test-tube babies.

Born in an orthodox Brahmin family in a village bordering Pudukottai near Thanjavur in 1920, Gemini started his career as a tutor in Madras Christian College after graduation and later joined the production house Gemini Studios in Chennai in 1947 as an executive. That is how he got his name.

Gemini?s first film was Miss Malini. His big break came in the early 1950s when another popular production house, AVM, introduced him as a hero in Penn (Woman). After that, there was no looking back.

Known as ?Kaadhal Mannan? (king of romance) to his large fan following, Gemini was particularly remembered for playing the tragic lover in several films. He won several awards, including the Padma Shri in 1971.