An article published by a foriegn magazine
East Indian star turns fan frenzy to good works:
Meet the most popular star who attended the recent Toronto film festival.
Now 40, having acted for half his life, Hassan has about 7,000 fan clubs across India with a total "hard-core" membership of about 300,000 people.
Redford, Streisand, Newman, Schwarzenegger and Hoffman don't come close to that. And neither they nor other Hollywood stars who attach themselves to socialcauses invoke their fans to follow them - certainly not as Hassan does.
Hassan insists that his fans do not tattoo his name on their bodies (as fans of many other East Indian stars commonly do), don't give him presents or shower him with flowers. And he has firmly ordered them not to expect him to quit the movies for politics. It is usual for major stars of Indian movies after lengthy careers to abandon the screen for politics and to convert their fan clubs into effective campaigners.
Hassan, a dashing star of mainstream movies from South India, regularly plays the outsider defending the less fortunate or noble ideals. In real-life, he has a social conscience. Instead of luxuriating in the worship of his fans and selling them T-shirts bearing his name, he asks them to volunteer their time to help the poor of tribal villages, work to help conquer illiteracy, go against Hindu tradition and will their eyes at death, donate books to orphanages and schools and regularly donate blood to the Red Cross rather than to commercial blood suppliers. And his fans do, in the thousands. For example, 10,000 people willed their eyes on "one single day."
Perhaps, sly and calculating moves to a future in politics? "I don't have any political ambitions," Hassan insisted in a festival interview.
"I have asked these clubs not to waste man hours. All these fan clubs of minehave been converted into social service organizations. There is this power. I can use it, or let down the social reins. They get no remuneration out of this. Many of my fans are day laborers and they have to keep this time aside from the time they keep for earning money.
"I felt these people would be wasting their lives just chanting my name. If they just did that, and I don't turn political, their whole focus would be wasted. So, I gave them something to munch."
Devoutly committed to social causes, Hassan refuses to sell photos of himself to his fans and does not license merchandise bearing his name, "not even a T-shirt," he declares. "They buy those from other vendors" whom he cannot legally control. "And I do not endorse any products. I don't do commercials. I've never done one in my life."
Because he asked them, his fan clubs use their annual dues to publish books and an in-house magazine of short stories by young Indian writers whose careers he encourages. General movie-fan magazines follow Hassan's personal life.
He has starred in 175 movies - about triple the number any Hollywood megastar makes in a lifetime of leading roles. Because of language differences, many Indian movies (600 are produced annually) are shown only regionally. His are seen nationally.
His adult acting career began in 1975. "For the first six years, I didn't know what to do with this crowd which was collecting around me. I was moved to tears. Sometimes 20 or 30 boys would run 150 miles just to give me a torch. At 6.30 a.m. they'd be outside my house. I would come out and they would fall at myfeet. It's a sad sight. One can boast about it in a press interview, but not to my countrymen or to any person for that matter.
"That's when I contacted people and said, 'What do I do with these guys? I can't ask them to go away. How can I be a benevolent dictator?' The idea came to do something worthwhile."
Now, Hassan says, several other Indian actors have followed his example and political parties have come calling on him more urgently.
The son of a top South Indian criminal lawyer, he began acting as a child "as a lark," then against family tradition studied theatre acting and dance and worked his way to choreographer, screenwriter, assistant director and handsome, brooding star.
And he's sometimes different on screen, too, where - snubbing advice of producers - he has played against type, "a village idiot in one and a dwarf in another one," also to box-office success.
Courtesy : The Toronto Star
BY SID ADILMAN TORONTO STAR
Published on September 24, 1994, Saturday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: ARTS; Pg. J14 |
| RSS Feed
| Email me when a reply is posted
