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Happy Birthday Shankar: 9 facts you might not know about India's highest paid director

Sree Prasad Nair | Updated on: 10 February 2017, 1:48 IST

Tamil super hit director Shankar celebrated his 53rd birthday on 17 August. He made his grand directorial debut in the 1993 big budget film, Arjun-Madhoo starrer Gentleman. The film was a huge blockbuster at the Box Office and also won him the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Director.

Since Gentleman, Shankar has directed 11 films and all of them have been clean hits at the Box Office. The talented director is all set to entertain the audience in 2017 with Enthiran 2 starring two of India's biggest superstars, Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar.

On his 53rd birthday, here are 9 lesser known facts about the 'Spielberg' of Indian cinema.

1) Shankar's real name is Shankar Shanmugam. He was born in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, to Shanmugam and Muthulakshmi on 17 August 1963. He has a diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Central Polytechnic College.

2) Shankar was introduced to the film industry by veteran filmmaker SA Chandrasekhar who hired him for script-writing. Shankar began his film career as an assistant to Chandrasekhar and Pavithran.

3) Shankar's first break in the film industry was in Bollywood when he assisted Chandrasekhar in the 1990 film, Jai Shiv Shankar. Starring Rajesh Khanna, the cast included Jeetendra, Dimple Kapadia, and Poonam Dhillon.

4) His debut film as a director, 1993 release Gentleman, opened to great reviews. He had also won the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and Filmfare awards for Best Director. The film, made on a budget of Rs 3 crore, went on to become a monster hit at the Box Office. His next release, Kadhalan was also a blockbuster and made Shankar a big name in Tamil cinema.

5) Shankar is touted as the Steven Spielberg of Indian cinema owing to his history of making big-budgeted films. Right from Gentleman to upcoming Enthiran 2, all of his films have been high budget films and interestingly, all of them turned out to be commercially successful at the Box Office. Two of his films, Indian (1996) and Jeans (1998), were submitted by India for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by MGR University.

6) Shankar is the highest paid director in India. In a career spanning 23 years, he has directed 12 films including 10 Tamil films and 2 Hindi films. He is the only Indian director to have zero flops to his credit.

7) Shankar is yet to receive a National award for his direction, but his films have always been strong contenders for the special effects category. Indian, Anniyan, and Enthiran had bagged the National Film Awards for Best Special Effects. Shankar has also won three Tamil Nadu State Awards and three Filmfare awards for his direction.

8) Out of his 12 releases, Shankar has collaborated with musical maestro AR Rahman seven times and all the albums enjoyed chart buster status.

9) Shankar is the only film director who has had worked with most of the Tamil superstars including Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Vikram, and Vijay. In 1996, Kamal Haasan won his fourth National award for his role in Shankar's Indian.

First published: 17 August 2016, 3:59 IST