Vijayakanth was a superstar in the 80s and 90s along with the Rajini-Kamal duo. Tamil has lost that immortal actor. He was admitted to a private hospital in Chennai the other day and was diagnosed with Covid-19 today. Then he was transferred to the ventilator as his condition worsened. The hospital authorities informed about the death this morning. Vijayakanth is one of the few actors who has acted only in Tamil films in his career. But most of his films have been dubbed into Telugu and Hindi. He has acted as a police officer in more than 20 films. In the 1980s and 1990s, Vijayakanth was an action icon with consistent box office appeal.
The name ‘Captain’ comes after the 100th film Captain Prabhakaran (1991). Vijayakanth also did not miss the trend of Tamil actors entering politics. On 14 September 2005, the National Murpok Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) was formed as a political party. Only Vijayakanth managed to win the party. In 2011, DMDK formed an alliance with AIADMK and contested on 40 seats. He won 29 of these. From 2011 to 2016, Vijayakanth saw Tamil Nadu as the leader of the opposition. With that, he was called a strong man in Tamil politics.
But the party went ahead with the work. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it formed an alliance with the BJP but lost all the 14 seats it contested. He stayed away from active politics for a long time due to ill health. His last film appearance was in Virudagiri which was released in 2010.
