Vishnupant Pagnis

Vishnupant Pagnis ( Marathi : विष्णुपंत पागनीस , Viṣṇupant Pāganīs ; * 1892 ; † 1943 ) was an Indian actor and singer of marathic film and theater.

Life

Vishnupant Pagnis began his career at the age of ten on stage in marathic music theater (" Sangeet Natak "). He was a member of the Swadeshi Hitchantak Natak Mandali theater group in Kolhapur and specialized in female roles such as Sharada and Shakuntala . The ensemble also performed in front of the Maharaja Shahu of Kolhapur . Pagnis' important female roles included his stage appearances in Mama Warerkar's Kunjvihari (1908) and with Govindrao Tembes theater group Shivraj Natak Mandali in the Hindi version of Manishankar Trivedi's Siddhasansar (1916). His style of play is said to have been strongly influenced by the nationally known female actor Jaishankar Sundari from Gujarat .

When his stage career as a female actor came to an end due to age and he could not secure a future there as a grown man, Pagnis tried to make a living in film. He made his first film appearances in Kolhapur with the Maharashtra Film Company in Baburao Painters Surekha Haran (1921) and in Pune with Deccan Pics in Warerkar's Poona Raided (1924), an elaborate historical spectacle about Shivaji's defense of the city of Pune against an attack by the Great Mogul Aurangzeb . For the time being there were no further engagements; he then earned his living as a music teacher at a state school.

His singing skills brought him back into the film business - probably through Tembe's mediation. It was more by chance that he got the title role of the mystic Tukaram in Sant Tukaram (1936), a Prabhat Film Company production directed by Vishnupant Damle and Sheikh Fattelal . Pagnis took on this role and his embodiment of Tukaram's religious devotion became the prototype in the sacred film genre of Indian film . The songs he sang in the film were successes in their own right and he was able to publish some recordings as a kirtan singer afterwards . Vishnupant Pagnis wrote the music for Sant Janabai (1938), a film by Narayan Gopinath Devare and Narayanrao Damodar Sarpotdar about Saint Janabai from the early 14th century. The following year he played the mystic Tulsidas under the direction of Jayant Desai for Ranjit Movietone - in a kind of reprise of his Tukaram role - with Leela Chitnis as his wife by his side. In addition to Durga Khote , Pagnis was also seen in Vijay Bhatt's Narsi Bhagat (1940), a film about the Gujarati poet Narasinh Mehta (1408–1475), and Parshwanath Yeshwant Altekar's Mahatma Vidur (1943).

Filmography

1921: Surekha Haran
1924: Poona Raided
1936: Sant Tukaram
1938: Sant Janabai (music only)
1939: Sant Tulsidas
1940: Narsi Bhagat
1943: Mahatma Vidur
1943: Bhakta Raaj

literature

Entry to Vishnupant Pagnis . In Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema , p. 168

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Pagnis, Vishnupant
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	पागनीस, विष्णुपंत (Marathi); Pāganīs, Viṣṇupant
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Indian actor and singer
DATE OF BIRTH	1892
DATE OF DEATH	1943