Tamil Actor Raghuvaran passed away in a hospital in Chennai

The quintessential psychopathic baddie of Tamil cinema, the man who gave villainy on screen a good name, Raghuvaran died here at a private hospital after battling personal demons and a few other debilitating physical problems. He was 49.

Raghuvaran is survived by his former wife actress Rohini (the couple had divorced) and their son, Nanda.

Raghuvaran had been unwell for the last few years and had taken a sabbatical from active films for some time. Sivapathigaram, released some time last year, marked his comeback. After that he was a regular figure acting in big films including Rajnikanth’s Sivaji. His last release was however Sila Nerangalil and Bheema (which had been made some time back).

The life of lanky Raghuvaran, who made his debut as a brooding Commie hero in Ezhavathu Manithan under the direction of Hariharan, eventually turned out to be bitter-sweet as he had to constantly fight his tendency to embrace the easier pleasures that were easily available to impressionable youngsters in Kollywood.

Unable to handle the success and fame that came his way early, Raghuvaran fell into bad habits, from which he never really came out till his untimely death today.

But even as he was living life on the edge with women, wine and many other seductive things, Raghuvaran also managed to win a name for himself as someone whose acting ability was refreshingly sans the usual Kollywood cliches. After playing hero roles not with egregious success, Raghuvaran was quick to switch over to the archetypal middle-class character roles. Films like Samsaram Adhu Minsaram, Aaha, Mugavari, Amarkkalam, Run, and many others with Rajnikanth including Muthu, Arunachalam, Siva, Sivaji, Raja Chinna Roja proved his versatility.

But it was as a villain, with shades of deep black and a touch of enigmatic and over-the-top eccentricity, that Raghuvaran’s eventual screen image came to be defined. The scene in which he completely lets himself loose, mouthing ‘I know’ for heaven knows how many times, in the film Puriyatha Puthir, became so popular that his real-life image was almost suspected to be something similar. It was one of the myths that he could never really shake off.

But even as he was fighting what eventually turned out to be a losing battle with the bottle, a spiritual and an ersatz philosophical side to his persona also opened up. He also became a devotee of Sai Baba. It was during this phase he struck a romantic chord with actress Rohini and married her.

The marriage, as it happened, like his film career promised a lot, but ended up mighty short. The couple had a son Nanda, on whom Raghuvaran was doting. When the marriage ended up in the courts, Raghuvaran became an even more broken man and reportedly fell into his self-created abyss. Though well-meaning individuals, who thought highly of his acting skills, tried to shore him up with some film offers all through last year, Raghuvaran was for all practical purposes had called it quits — on films and life too.

In the event, his end, though surprising in its immediate aftermath, was something that was foretold the moment he courted early success. Raghuvaran’s life, like some of his movies including the almost biographical Idhu Oru Manidhanin Kadhai, was something of a cautionary morality play. A noir show of how success could be as lethal as a failure, sometimes.