Amitabh Bachchan’s admiration for South Film industry

Star of Millennium Amiatbh Bachchan will soon be seen draped in the traditional Southern attire of silk dhoti and veshti or mandu along with top Southern superstars Prabhu, Vikram Prabhu, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Shiva Rajkumar and Manju Warrier in an upcoming commercial. 

Elated at being among the sons of great legends of South Cinema, Amitabh Bachchan in his blog wrote, "And today with the greats of Southern India .. all of them sons of ‘The Greats’ in the early years of my career. Prabhu - son of the great Shivaji Ganesan from Tamil cinema, Vikram - Prabhu's son, Shiva, the son of the great Rajkumar from Karnataka cinema, Nagarjun - son the great Akkineni Nageshwar Rao, of Telugu cinema and Manju Warrior, the darling of Malayalam cinema."

Recalling his early days, when Amitabh Bachchan was rejected by Bollywood it was South film industry that came to his rescue. The first film that came his way was director Ravikant Nagaich’s PYAR KI KAHANI, which was a remake of Tamil film KAI KODUTHA DEIVAM, staring the legendary South Superstar Shivaji Ganesan. 

Applauding thespian Shivaji Ganesan, Bachchan candidly confesses, “I had great difficulty in playing the complex role played so effortlessly by Ganesan Sir.” He added, “Frankly speaking I was not even able to reach an inch of the work that was done so marvelously by Shivaji Sir in the original.” 

Bachchan became his fan instantly and revered the legend to such an extent that whenever he met Shivaji Ganesan, he would touch his feet!

"My admiration for the Southern Film Industry needs no endorsement...I have had great respect for the thespians and the giants of the Industry - all of whom I had the great privilege to spend time with," claimed Bachchan in his blog. 

True indeed because readers may recall that actually it was S. Ramanathan, famous South director, who exploited the histrionics of Amitabh Bachchan excellently in his film BOMBAY TO GOA that opened the doors for ZANJEER, the movie that made Bachchan a superstar overnight. 

In fact writers Salim Javed, who scripted ZANJEER, were highly impressed by Bachchan’s action sequences in BOMBAY TO GOA and persuaded film director Prakash Mehra to experiment and he took the risk. 

Rest is history. Thus Amitabh Bachchan won his first ticket to stardom thanks to South director S. Ramanathan.