Known for his subtle mannerism, the versatile Sadashiv Amrapurkar played varied villainous and comic roles enthralling the audience with his unique style in a career spanning over three decades.
The actor, who died on Monday morning, played iconic character roles including a ruthless eunuch in ‘Sadak’, a villain in ‘Ardh Satya’ and a selfish father in ‘Ishq’ with effortless ease.
Born as Ganesh Kumar Narwode to an auto driver in Nasik in 1956, he adopted the name Sadashiv in 1974. Fondly known as Tatya in his family and friend circle, Amrapurkar grew up in Ahmednagar with his parents and a younger brother.
He was a trained singer but was advised that his highly nasal baritone would prevent him from achieving fame - so at the age of 21, Sadashiv migrated to theatre and the stage. He acted in more than 50 plays and also began to act in minor roles in Marathi cinema until in 1979.
In 1981-82, Amrapurkar acted in a Marathi stage play ‘Hands Up!’ alongside stage actors Avinash Masurekar and Bhakti Barve-Inamdar. This play was a super-hit and Amrapurkar was noticed by director Govind Nihalani who was searching for an artiste to play the central negative character in his movie ’Ardh Satya’
The movie went on to be a success and Amrapurkar’s acting was appreciated.
After ‘Ardh Satya’, Amrapurkar starred in small roles in films such as ‘Purana Mandir’, ‘Nasoor’, ‘Muddat’, ‘Veeru Dada’, ‘Jawani’, and ‘Farishtay’
In 1987, he starred as the main villain in Dharamendra starrer ‘Hukumat’ which went on to be a blockbuster.
In 1991 he appeared as a eunuch in ‘Sadak’. He won a Filmfare award for his performance and became the first recipient of the best negative role honour.
In the mid-1990s he migrated towards supporting and comic roles in ‘Mohra’, ‘Ishq’, ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain’, ’Aankhen’, ‘Ishq’, ‘Coolie No 1’, ‘Gupt: The Hidden Truth’, ’Aunty No 1’, ‘Jai Hind’, ‘Master’ among others.
He played the role of Dr. Khanna in the 1996 film ‘Chhote Sarkar’.
Apart from giving some power-packed performances in more than 300 movies in Hindi, the actor also tried his luck in Bengali, Oriya and Haryanvi movies.
