| Actor Nick Name | Rajinikanth |
| Actor Brith Name | Shivaji Gaekwad |
| Date of birth | 12th December 1949 |
Rajinikanth was born on December 12 1949 in Karnataka, India. He was the fourth child to his parents, Jija bai and Ramoji Rao Gaekwad. His original name was Sivaji Rao Gaekwad. He lost his mother at the age of five.
He had his schooling at the Acharya Patasala in Bangalore and then at the Vivekananda Balak Sangh, a unit of the Ramakrishna Mission. His mother tongue is Marathi, though he has not done many films in it.
There is a famous saying about Rajinikanth in southern part of India, recited as “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Rajini is a Super Star. Before starting his career in the film industry, he had to take up all sorts of odd jobs.
He served as a bus conductor for Karnataka state transport corporation in Bangalore. It was during this time that he nurtured his acting interests by performing in various stage plays.A friend helped him to join the Madras Film institute where Rajinikanth completed basic acting course in 1974 at the age of 25.
He started his acting career in Kannada in the movie Kathaa Sangama, directed by Puttanna Kanagal, in 1976.
In Tamil, he started with playing supporting roles, beginning as a cancer patient in Apoorva Raagangal (1975), directed by K. Balachander, who assigned him his stage name Rajnikanth.
After several films in the Eighties, he played a Hindu saint in his 100th movie, Sri Raghavendra. Many others followed, among them dramas, comedies (notably Thillu Mullu, a remake of Amol Palekar’s Golmaal) and, at the end of the eighties, action-oriented family entertainers like Velaikkaran and Manidhan.Annamalai, which released in 1992, was the first Rajini film to gross almost Rs. 100 million at the box office.
Unlike the eighties, several movies during his nineties were successful, like Muthuor Basha. At 53, his Baba released amid fanfare. Although the film grossed enough to cover its budget, it was viewed as a miserable showing and fell short of market expectations accumulating heavy losses for the distributors. Rajnikanth himself returned the losses back to the distributors who had immense faith in him. The whole affair cost him dear in terms of repute of making a comeback.
Chandramukhi, a remake of the Malayalam movie Manichitrathazhu. Chandramukhi was claimed as one of the most successful Tamil films ever as it ran in theatres (particularly in one theatre in Mount Road, Chennai) for over 600 days since release and still running. His next film, Sivaji: The Boss, directed by S. Shankar will be released in 2007.Apart from Tamil, Rajnikanth has acted in over 160 movies, including Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and Bengali. He has also acted in a Hollywood movie Bloodstone in 1988.
Rajnikanth was awarded the Padma Bhushan award in the year 2000 and was rated as one of the most influential persons in South Asia by Asiaweek. Rajnikanth has won the Filmfare Best Actor Award, South on 2 occasions.
He is the highest paid actor in India and the second highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie ChanRajinikanth was requested by his fans for many years to stand in the State election of Tamil Nadu, but has consistently resisted entering politics directly. But he did some indirect attempts in politics by announcing support to a Political Party in Tamil Nadu.
