Veteran actor-filmmaker Bharathiraja passed away at the age of 84 on Wednesday at his Chennai residence due to age-related complications. The director helmed dozens of films across a career spanning more than four decades. His last full-length feature as a director was Meendum Oru Mariyathai (2020), while his final directorial work was the segment Paravai Kootil Vaazhum Maangal in the 2023 anthology series Modern Love Chennai. He went on to act for another 15 years after that, last appearing in Tharun Moorthy’s Malayalam crime thriller Thudarum last year.
But one of Bharathiraja’s most enduring pieces of work is his seminal directorial debut itself — 16 Vayathinile (1977). The romantic drama featured the iconic trio of Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, and Sridevi in lead roles. While the two male leads took pay cuts to star in the low-budget rural drama, a 14-year-old Sridevi agreed to go sans makeup.
Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth got pay cuts, deglamourised looks
In fact, Kamal recalled in 2017 that his first impression of the legendary filmmaker was a man wearing a soiled dhoti and shirt. “Years ago, a man sporting a soiled dhoti and shirt came to my office to narrate a script. Had I turned the offer down on the basis of his dirty clothes, I wouldn’t have been here talking to you,” recounted the actor.
“After listening to the script, I realised that he was such a genius, and the movie was the cult classic 16 Vayathinile and he was none other than ace Bharathiraja sir,” added Kamal. He was already a rising star in Tamil cinema by then, but his performance in 16 Vayathinile is considered one of his best in a deglamourised role. Much of that had to do with his director’s image back then.
“I came into this industry to become a star. But in those days, you needed a doll-like face to be a hero. Handsome men like Gemini Ganesan and AVM Rajan were heroes then. With my rugged features, I did not stand a chance. Because I had lost, I was seething in anger and decided that I would make a star out of everyone. A character need not be beautiful,” Bharathiraja said in a 2017 interview with Chennai Times.
Bharathiraja confessed he wanted to make Kamal look “ugly” in order to break the stereotype of the leading man. That’s why he made Kamal grow his signature curly hair and wear khadi high-buttoned shirts and lungis for his role of Gopalakrishnan.
Kamal even reduced his fee demand of Rs 30,000 by Rs 3,000 and eventually took home Rs 27,000
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Not only Kamal, but also Rajinikanth took a massive pay cut for playing Parattaiyan, a village ruffian, in 16 Vayathinile. Since Rajinikanth wasn’t as big a star as Kamal back then, he took a 50% pay cut on his salary demand of Rs 5,000 to take home only Rs 2,500. That did cause some friction between him and the director, which was eventually ironed out.
How Bharathiraja introduced Sridevi to Hindi cinema
Bharathiraja envisioned the leading lady, Mayil, as a Class 9 student, who is around 16 years of age. However, when he came across Sridevi, who was 14 then, he felt her eyes had the “dreamy sparkle” he imagined in Mayil. Sridevi embraced the no-makeup look, much to the director’s surprise.
“At the last day of the shoot, she became emotional and wept. When I asked her, she said she would miss the locales, a village where we shot the film. That’s when I figured how emotional she was as a person,” Bharathiraja told DT Next in 2018 after Sridevi’s death.
Bharathiraja was also instrumental in getting Sridevi to Hindi cinema, although she was initially “hesitant” to take the leap. She eventually made her Hindi film debut with Bharathiraja’s Hindi directorial debut Solva Sawan (1979), a remake of 16 Vayathinile, which starred her as Mehna, Amol Palekar in the role of Kamal, and Kulbhushan Kharbanda taking on the part essayed by Rajinikanth in the Tamil original.
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16 Vayithinile had no takers
Despite featuring a rising star like Kamal Haasan, 16 Vayathinile initially struggled to find any distributors. It was made on a budget of Rs 5 lakh, but there was no money left to shoot slow-motion sequences using the high-speed technique. So, the actors were made to actually move in slow motion to lend that effect.
Also Read: Veteran filmmaker-actor Bharathiraja dies at 84
After the release, 16 Vayathinile went on to earn Rs 10 lakh at the box office, running for over 175 days in the cinemas, turning into a silver jubilee film. It also got rave reviews, and changed the course of the careers of all its three lead actors. It was remade in Telugu too, as K Raghavendra Rao’s Padaharella Vayasu (1978), also starring Sridevi.
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