Even after four decades Chevalier Dr. Sivaji Ganesan continues to pull in the crowds. For a few years though the lagendary actor had taken a break from acting because he did not think there were any good directors around till Kamal Haasan coaxed him out of his self imposed hibernation with Thevar Magan. And now people weep when he dies on screen, they smile when he's resurrected. No one deserves the Dada Saheb Phalke award more than this actor who's wooed the masses and won over the critics with his versatile genius.

Chennai's celebrating. After four decades Sivaji Ganesan has got his due recognition. He's the proud recipient of this year's Dada Saheb Phalke award and his friends and fans are ecstatic. Every successful actor down south dreams of a chance to act with the legend. Sivaji Ganesan has been an inspiration even to the supremos, Rajanikant and Kamal Haasan. And he's also been a muse for those behind-the-camera. It is a known fact in Tamil film circles that even today when directors and script writers run out of ideas, they take a cue or two from videos of Sivaji's old hits. His films, with slight adaptations can still pull in the crowds.

It was the fiery dialogue penned by Karunanidhi in Parasakthi that launched Sivaji to stardom. Parasakthi was produced jointly by PA Perumal of National Pictures and AV Meyiappan of AVM, and after its release the actor-now-turned-mentor never looked back. He was applauded by the masses and his performances were appreciated by the critics. It was only the awards committee whom Sivaji couldn't woo. He had once remarked to a writer in despair, "You need a political lobby to boost you up but even when I was the Rajya Sabha MP it never occurred to me to lobby for an honour conferred by the government.

Sivaji Ganesan has portrayed many different characters. He played a rebel chieftain in Veera Pandiya Kattabomman (1950), a loving brother in Parasakthi (1952), a valiant prince in Manorama (1954) and a traitor in Andha Naal (1954, the first Tamil film without any songs). In the '60s he continued to come up with more examples of his versatility. He was a revolutionary patriot. VO Chidambaram Pillai, in Kapalotty Tamizhan (1961), a psychologically disturbed man in Alaaymani (1962), a shrew tamer in Arivalli (1963), karna in Karnan (1964), Lord Shiva in Thiruvilayadal (1965) and a nadaswaram vidwan in Thillana Mohanambal (1968). Two years later he again came up with an impressive performance as a responsible official in Vietnam Veedu. Followed by Babu in 1971 in which he played a very convincing rickshaw puller. The lawyer of Gauravam (1973) and the duty-bound police officer of Thangapathakam (1974) were other memorable portrayals. Sivaji Ganesan has always excelled in dramatic roles but he was not as comfortable doing actions scenes. "Anyone can do fights and when there are so many other actors to do it then why should I brother with it?" he argues. "We take a few close-ups of me hitting the villain and then the duplicate takes over. That why it's not very difficult to do fight scenes.

Failing health and changing trends resulted in the thespian taking a backseat for a while and let Kamal Haasan and Rajanikant, both of whom consider him their guru, take centrestage. Kamal convinced him to change his mind and they acted together for the first time in Bharathan's Thevar Magan (remade as Virasat in Hindi with Amrish Puri playing the role Sivaji had done in the original). The film was one of the biggest blockbusters of the decade. People wept unconsolably when Sivaji does in the film.

He was seen recently in two films, the Bharathiraja directed Pasumpi which he did with his second son Prabhu and Once More with Vijay. He has just signed a film to be directed by Kasthuriraja with Napolean as his co-actor. However even after 40 years he's still craving to play his dream role. I always wanted to play role of Periyar and may be somebody will come forward and offer it to me," he says optimistically.