Thiruvananthapuram  :

Veteran actor  Jagannatha Varma, who played the roles of a kathakali artist,  police officer and film actor with ease in real life, died at a private hospital here on Tuesday. He was 77.

Varma was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia two days ago. He suffered a cardiac arrest on Tuesday morning and his death was confirmed around 8.30am, according to hospital authorities.

Varma who got trained in kathakali at a very young age had performed mostly women characters on kathakali stages across the state. He had almost found his future in kathakali when Varma got a job as a police sub-inspector. His passion for acting made him pursue all possible opportunities which he thought would lead him to his first film.

However all such ventures ended bitterly for Varma. Once he was promised a role in a film by a prominent producer. A jubilant Varma turned up at the producer’s house. When the producer asked him to sit, Varma obeyed. Later he came to know that he was ruled out of the film only because he had the gall to sit in front of the film producer despite being a debutant.

The misfortune continued in his second attempt also. P Ramdas, director of the film Newspaper Boy was planning his second film. Varma was summoned for a role. The shooting began only to be wound up in two days. Nothing more was heard of the film. Hopes again bloomed as one of his close friends decided to shoot a movie. The shooting was completed, but by the time post-production works were done, the transition to colour had happened and the film never came on screen.

He finally made his debut in 1978 portraying a character like a judge (in his own words) who only had to utter two dialogues — ‘Objection over-ruled, Yes, proceed’. Jagannatha Varma slowly made his footing playing character and villainous roles and went on to become a familiar presence in Malayalam cinema portraying a range of roles. He made himself a memorable actor with his roles as a finicky newspaper owner in the film Pathram or Palakunnath Namboothiri, the polygamous old man in his sixties in the film Parinayam.

Varma leaves behind his wife Santha, son Manu and daughter Priya. Director Viji Thampi is his son-in-law. His body was kept at Kalabhavan Theatre for the public to pay homage. The cremation will be held at Cherthala at 11am on Wednesday.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Thiruvananthapuram News / TNN / December 21st, 2016