Best of the baddest

By: Vamanan
Hero-Villain-Comedian T S Baliah Could Play Every Kind Of Role, Including Mentor — He Was Also The Man Who Helped Launch MGR’s Career As Matinee Idol
Sometime in 1946, actor T S Baliah had been booked to play the lead in production house Jupiter’s ‘Rajakumari’. A veteran at the time, Baliah recommended M G Ramchandran to play the villain.
But MGR approached Baliah, and told him to convince the producers to cast him in the role of the protagonist. You are capable of acting in any role given to you, MGR is supposed to have told Baliah, who obliged, and got the producers to switch the roles. So, Baliah played the villain in the film, and MGR made his debut as a hero, launching his career as a matinee idol.
Baliah, like MGR, had so clearly stated in his appeal, was known for his ability to traverse from villain to hero, comedian to character actor with ease, gaining him the respect of everyone in the industry and audience.
It has been 50 years since the veteran actor died, but he is still remembered for his performances. A scene in ‘Kaadhalikka Neramillai’ (1964) in which Nagesh narrates a spooky tale to Baliah which has him on tenterhooks, is a meme today.
Baliah’s body of work covered 150 films and harks back to 1936 when the American cinematographer-turned-director Ellis R Dungan had him play the antagonist in his first film, ‘Sati Leelavathi’. Baliah reprised the villain again in Dungan’s much lauded ‘Iru Sahodarargal’ (1936), in the M K Thyagaraja Bhagavathar-starrer and hit ‘Ambikapathi’ (1937) and in M S Subbulakshmi’s ‘Meera’ (1945). So struck was Dungan by the actingprowess of Baliah that he cast him in a 20-minute docudrama (The Returning Soldier), that he made in 1945 for the then Madras Government’s war department.
The role of a villain that Dungan envisaged for Baliah in his feature films stuck for more than two decades with the latter playing the antagonist opposite reigning stars like MKT and P U Chinnappa and next generation heroes like MGR and Sivaji Ganesan.
But Baliah wasn’t your typical villain who would send a chill down your spine but more the bad guy who posed hurdles to the hero and sometimes vied with him for the heroine’s attention. He could play every kind of villain from the blackmailer (Oar Iravu 1951) to the philanderer (Ezhai Padum Paadu 1950) and brought a style and polish to the character that were all his own. It is said that Baliah used to beg the pardon of his family deity (kula devatha) when he had to perform particularly vicious acts on screen.
Baliah might have, like M N Nambiar, become a villain for life had he not shifted gear to playing comedian and character actor. The switchover was easy as there was a hint of comedy even in the negative roles he played (like the Marwari merchant in ‘Thookku Thookki’ who cuckolds the hero played by Sivaji Ganesan).
The 1960s saw Baliah excelling himself through some superb portrayals. In K Balachander’s ‘Bama Vijayam’ (1967), he plays the family elder who along with his grandchildren, cautions his sons and daughters-in-law against extravagant living. In ‘Tillana Mohanambal’ (1968), he fits like a glove in the role of a thavil vidwan to Sivaji’s Sikkal Shanmugasundaram.
Upon Baliah’s unexpected passing on October 21, 1972, at the age of 60, T V Ramnath, the editor of the film magazine ‘Pesum Padam’ referred to him as ‘the radiant lamp of the world of actors’.
(The writer is a historian of Tamil cinema and an author of several books on the subject)