Rajinikanth turns 67: Some lesser known facts about the superstar

Mumbai: Superstar Rajinikanth turned 67 on Tuesday. The Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan awardee Rajinikanth was born on December 12, 1950 in a Maratha family in Bengaluru. The actor who has won millions of hearts in the span of over four decades has made his debut in acting through the Tamil film Apoorva 'Raagangal' (1975).

Read: Superstar Rajinikanth turns 67, keeps away from celebrations yet again

As the icon, Rajinikanth turns 67, here are some of the lesser known facts about him:

• Rajinikanth's real name is Chhatrapati Shivaji. The actor was named after a Maratha warrior King, and was brought up speaking Marathi at home and Kannada outside
• The actor was good at academics and had great interest in cricket, football and basketball
• Before entering the film film industry, Rajinikanth used to work as coolie, carpenter and bus conductor in the cities of Bangalore and Madras
• Rajinikanth is the only Indian actor to be featured in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus, in a lesson titled From Bus Conductor to Superstar
• After opening his first official Twitter account in 2014, Rajinikanth received over 2,10,000 followers within 24 hours. As on December 12, 2017, the superstar has 4.38 million world-wide followers on Twitter alone
• Rajinikanth married Latha Rangachari on February 26, 1981. Latha was a student of Ethiraj College for Women and had interviewed Rajini for her college magazine
• Rajinikanth is a follower of Hinduism, spiritualism, and a strong believer of spirituality. He is also a practitioner of yoga and meditation
• For his role in 'Sivaji' (2007) Rajinikanth received an acting fee of Rs 26 crore in 2007 and became the highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie Chan at the time
• Rajinikanth pursued diploma in acting from Madras Film Institute and also learnt Tamil during his course
• In the first couple years of his film career, Rajinikanth got only negative roles to play - of an abusive husband, a rapist, a womaniser, a pornographer, an adulterer etc, but it was in 1977 when he first got to enact in a positive role in the film 'Bhuvana Oru Kelvikkuri'
• Raijinikanth, who credited Bollywood film star Amitabh Bachchan as his inspiration, began playing Amitabh Bachchan's roles in Tamil remakes of his films