Ajith Kumar is the son of Subramaniam and Mohini. He has two brothers, Anil and Anup. He is married to actress Shalini. They have a baby girl called Joan. Ajith is a high school drop out. He was a salesman in the garment export business for a while and also tried his hand at modelling. Ajith starred in a few advertisements before he got the chance to act in films.Ajith debuted in the film Prema Pustagam (Telugu) in 1992. Ajith Kumar is recognized for his triple roles in Varalaru (Tamil) that is his biggest grosser to date and for his sensitive character portrayal in Kireedam (Tamil). Ajith has more than 60,000 fan clubs throughout Tamil Nadu. Ajith had a small role as Asoka's brother in Shah Rukh Khan's Asoka (Hindi) in 2001.
Early life
Ajith Kumar was born as the middle child in Hyderabad, India to a Tamil father and a Sindhi mother. However he has strong ties to the Tamil culture and society as he grew up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He dropped out of Asan Memorial Senior Secondary School in 1986 to become a full-time garment exporter based in Erode till 1990. Several business agencies pushed him into modelling for advertisements in print media.
Romantic hero (1992-2000)
Ajith started his film career at the age of 21 as an actor in the Telugu movie Prema Pustakam in 1992. His next film was the Tamil film Amaravathi. And his second film was the Tamil film Pavithra. Both of these films were below average at the box office. But it was the super hit film Aasai, released in 1995 and directed by Vasanth had established his career as a leading actor in Kollywood.Ajith's first big budget venture was Aasai. But it was only until the release of the National Award winning Kadhal Kottai which was his blockbuster ever in his career, released in 1996. Ajith later played the lead in Amitabh Bachchan's debut Tamil production Ullasam. This venture paid him a salary of Rs. 5 million for the first time ever.
A string of very successful movies followed, most notably Kadhal Mannan and Vaali which cast him alongside Simran. Vaali saw a new peak in Ajith's career. He played a dual role in the film. One as a deaf-and-dumb twin who lusts after his naive brother's wife. After Amarkalam with his then-fiancee, now wife Shalini, Ajith set up his own distribution company AK International with the office located within the premises of NIC Arts which was run by his ex-friend, producer and distributor S. S. Chakravarthi. This office was shifted in 2006. In 2000, Ajith was cast alongside Mammooty, Abbas, Tabu and Aishwarya Rai in Kandukondain Kandukondain. Mugavari followed as Ajith acted alongside Jyothika Saravanan.
Ups and downs (2001-2005)
In 2001 , Ajith played the role of Shahrukh Khan's brother in the commercially unsuccessful historical film Asoka. He began the year with the scintillating movie Dheena directed by A. R. Murugadoss. This movie showed Ajith as a rowdy and he acted alongside Suresh Gopi and Laila Mehdin. Citizen opposite Vasundhara Das was experimentally successful and earned the actor with lot of appreciation and awards but the movie failed to mark it's signature in the box office, Citizen was followed by Poovellam Un Vaasam which was also an average grosser. The film Raja opposite Jyothika Saravanan and the action flick Red proved to be a disaster for the actor and marked the downfall and an proved to be an all time low in the actor's career.
In 2003 and 2004, Ajith acted in Anjaneya, Jana and Attagasam opposite Meera Jasmine, Sneha, and Pooja Umashankar respectively. While Anjaneya and Jana flopped at the box office, Attagasam became an average. He later went on to act in the film Ji which opened very well but failed to sustain success in the longrun.
Billa and the future (2006-present)
During 2006, Ajith acted in 3 projects. First he acted in Paramasivan directed P. Vasu and then in Thirupathi directed by Perarasu. Both were below average films. Later that year he released his 3 year-pending project Varalaru: History of Godfather directed by K. S. Ravikumar. Varalaru turned out to be a blockbuster movie in terms of collection due to the three roles he played as an old man who was once a classical dancer and two identical twins, with one being the antagonist.
Ajith's first film in 2007 was with the newcomer director Chella in his maiden film entitled Aalwar. Aalwar did not live up to the expectations created by the success of Varalaru. As a result it was a major let down for Ajith. After Aalwar, Ajith acted in a remake of a 1989 National Film Award winning Malayalam film, Kireedam with Trisha Krishnan. The film was produced by Adlabs and marked the production company's entry into Kollywood. With a few controversies regarding the film's immensely emotional climax, it was appreciated for Ajith's excellent performed and it was an average movie of that year. On the sets of this film, Ajith sustained a recurring spinal injury.
In December 2007, Billa its large international released since it was the remake of the 1980 Rajinikanth-starrer Tamil film of the same name which itself was a remake of Amitabh Bachchan's 1978 Hindi film Don which in turn was remade by Shah Rukh Khan in 2006 as Don again.
After Billa, Ajith acted in the film Aegan, which was directed by the choreographer turned director Raju Sundaram. Ajith is currently acting in the film Asal which is being directed by Saran, making Asal their fourth film together. By 2008, Ajith was paid a salary exceeding $2 million
Personal life
Ajith began dating his Amarkalam co-star Shalini in 1999 . At that time, their involvement made him a regular subject of tabloid gossip, a role to which he was unaccustomed. They were married in 2000 in Chennai, where they invited many other Kollywood actors and actresses including Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan, Joseph Vijay, Surya Sivakumar and R. Madhavan. As both were of different religions, Ajith being a Hindu and Shalini being Catholic, they were married together under the customs of both religions . After their marriage in the year 2000, Shalini retired as an actress and became a full time housewife. However she did accompany Ajith to the sets of his films as moral support. On January 3, 2008, the couple have a baby girl, Anoushka Kumar.
Professional car racer
Ajith is a professional "car racer" and has driven in circuits around India in places such as Mumbai , Chennai and Delhi. He has also been abroad for various races including Germany and Malaysia. He drove in the Formula 3 for the team Mango Racing.
He was in 2004, India's third best driver after Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandok.
Ajith is an ambassador for the Green Revolution, an organization to clean up the Chennai environment. He uses his films for subtle marketing of his ideas and planted 101 saplings in his locality in Adyar, Chennai in 2004. This was to make an awareness about the environment and to increase the oxygen levels in Chennai due to the pollution caused by everyday motorists. This action was welcomed by the public. Since then the Green Revolution themselves have went on to plant many saplings in other parts of Tamil Nadu.
Mohini-Mani Foundation
Ajith created this non-profit organisation named after his parents in order to promote self-hygiene and civic consciousness and to help ease the problems of urban sprawl . The Mohini-Mani Foundation became important to Ajith from 2003 onwards and he now continues to fund the non-profit organisation to make sure he keeps helping to ease the problems of urban sprawl.
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