Junior Balaiah – Character artist of Tamil cinema

Raghu Balaiah, best known as Junior Balaiah is a Tamil film and stage actor best known for playing character roles. He is the third son of T. S. Balaiah, an actor & thespian of Tamil cinema. For the same reason he adopted the screen name, Junior Balaiah. His sister Manochithra plays character roles on screen. Raghu Balaiah owns more than 4 decades of experience in entertainment industry, yet couldn’t become as successful as his father.

Junior Balaiah, born in a family with filmy background in Chennai also chose the same field. He was born in 1953. His family originally hails from Sundankottai of Thoothukudi district. Junior Balaiah has been active in Tamil film industry since early 1970s. Melnaattu Marumagal, Ilaya Thalaimurai, Thyagam etc are some of his early releases. He was mostly active in the film scene in the 1990s, and by 2010 he turned choosier. His role as headmaster in Saattai (2012) is one of his memorable roles in the recent past. Thani Oruvan and Puli are other noted works after that. He now plans to launch his son in film industry.

Junior Balaiah – Some interesting and less-known facts

1. All the artist members of his family have excelled in portraying character and supporting roles.

2. He converted to Evangelism following Christianity and also owns a healing centre called Healing Stripes Ministry. His failure in career made him bankrupt and prompted him to change his religion.  

3. He was to share screen space with his father for the first time through the movie, Suttaan Sutten. Following the death of his father the film got shelved.

4. His father died just three days after the release of his debut flick.

5. Since 2010 he is a seasonal actor, because of his continuous failures.