Salman Khan is an Indian film
actor, producer, occasional
singer and television personal-
ity. In a film career spanning
over thirty years, Khan has
received numerous awards,
including two National Film
Awards as a film producer,
and two Filmfare Awards for
acting. He has a significant
following in Asia and the Indi-
an diaspora worldwide and is
cited in the media as one of the
most commercially successful
actors of both world and
Indian cinema.
Mohanlal Viswanathan was born in the
village of Elanthoor in the Pathana-
mthitta district, Kerala on 21 May 1960.
He is the youngest child of Viswana-
than Nair, a former bureaucrat and law
secretary with the Kerala Government,
and Santhakumari.
The film was a critical and commer-
cial success and got Mohanlal the
National Film Award for Best Actor for
that year. His role in Bharatham was
listed among the 25 best acting per-
formances of Indian cinema by Forbes
India on the occasion of celebrating
100 years of Indian Cinema. In 1999,
he produced and acted in Vanaprast-
ham, which won him his second Na-
tional Film Award for Best Actor. It was
nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at
the AFI Los Angeles International Film
Festival (AFI Fest) and was screened
in the Un Certain Regard section at the
1999 Cannes Film Festival.
Vanaprastham was screened in retro-
spective, during the 2014 International
Film Festival of India in the Celebrat-
ing Dance in Indian cinema section. In
a career spanning over three decades,
Mohanlal has acted in over three hundred
and twenty Malayalam films in various
genres. Mohanlal is also known for his
works in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kan-
nada, which include internationally well
received films such as Iruvar by Mani
Ratnam and Company by Ram Gopal
Varma.
Referred by the media as "The Com-
plete Actor" and one of the finest actors
of India, Mohanlal has won five Indian
National Film Awards, along with six
Kerala State Film Awards for Best Ac-
tor and eight Filmfare Awards for Best
Actor. In 2019, the Government of India
honored him with the Padma Bhushan,
India's third-highest civilian honour, for
his contributions towards Indian cinema.
In 2009, he became the first and the only
actor to receive the honorary rank of Lieu-
tenant Colonel in the Territorial Army of
India and in 2010 he received an honor-
ary doctorate from Sree Sankaracharya
University of Sanskrit, Kerala.
Mohanlal's career spans four decades,
during which he has acted in over 340
films and produced or co-produced films
under three production houses—Casino
Films, Cheers Films, and Pranavam Arts
International. He works predominantly in
Malayalam cinema, his acting credits also
include some Bollywood, Tamil, Telugu
and Kannada films. Mohanlal has occa-
sionally acted in some professional plays
and has also appeared in a few short
films. He has recorded over 31 songs,
most of them for the films in which he has
acted in. In television, Mohanlal hosts the
reality show Bigg Boss (2018) on Asianet.
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