Director

Vishnuvardhan

Acting

Career Snapshot

Explained

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Directed credits

Emerging

Beginning to build directing work.

TMDB popularity

0.4

Low visibility

TMDB internal trend index. Higher usually means more searches and page activity now.

Directed movies: 0Directed series: 0All crew credits: 1

TMDB ID: 1179741

IMDb ID: nm0889542

Known for: Acting

Born: September 18, 1950

Died: December 30, 2009

Age: 59

Place of birth: Mysore, Karnataka, India

Gender: Male

Adult content flag: No

Career span: 1972 - 2016

Years active: 45

Wikidata: Q2097394

Also known as

Sampath Kumar • Vishnuvardhan

Frequent jobs

Screenplay (1)

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Biography

Sampath Kumar (18 September 1950 – 30 December 2009), known by his stage name Vishnuvardhan, was an Indian actor who worked predominantly in Kannada cinema besides also having sporadically appeared in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Malayalam language films. Vishnuvardhan has a prolific career spanning over four decades, during which he has acted in more than 220 films. A popular cultural icon of Karnataka, and holds the status of a matinée idol among the Kannada diaspora. He is popularly called as Sahasa Simha, Dada and The Angry Young Man of Kannada Cinema. Vishnuvardhan's contributions to Kannada cinema have been praised by his contemporaries in the Indian film industry. The Government of Karnataka honoured him with the highest civilian awards of Karnataka State, the Karnataka Ratna Award in 2025, Rajyothsava Prashasthi in 1990 and the Dr. Rajkumar Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007 for his contributions to Kannada cinema. He was called The Phoenix of Indian Cinema. In 2008, a poll conducted by CNN-IBN listed Vishnuvardhan as the most popular star in the Kannada film industry.

Movies