Veteran Tamil filmmaker, writer K Bhagyaraj dies at 73

The Indian Express: K Bhagyaraj, the veteran Tamil director, actor and writer, passed away in Chennai on Saturday due to a heart attack. He was 73.

He is survived by his wife, former actress Poornima Bhagyaraj, along with their two children, actor Shanthanu Bhagyaraj and daughter Saranya Bhagyaraj. He had stayed publicly active right up until his final days, having been present at the Goa wedding of actor-politician Khushbu Sundar’s daughter just days before he died.

Over a career spanning decades, he introduced actors Urvashi and Kalpana to Tamil cinema, and was known for films including Mundhanai Mudichu, Chinna Veedu, Darling Darling Darling, Sundara Kandam and Enga Chinna Rasa. As a filmmaker, he was known for his humour with socially relevant themes, carving a niche in Tamil cinema.

Long before he became one of the defining voices of Tamil cinema in the 1980s, Krishnaswamy Bhagyaraj was a college dropout from Coimbatore. It was an unlikely starting point for a man who would go on to write, direct, act in and occasionally even score the music for some of the most commercially successful Tamil films of his era.