THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Actor Mohanraj, the 72-year-old who is popularly known by his screen name ‘Keerikkadan Jose’ of Kireedam is no more. Actor and director P Dinesh Panicker informed the death of Keerikkadan Jose through his Facebook post that he died at his home at Kanjiramkulam in Thiruvananthapuram at 3 pm.
The funeral will be held later as one of his daughters is based in Canada. He is survived by wife Usha and daughters, Jaishma and Kaaviya.
Mohanraj who gave a new meaning to villain character, Keerikkadan Jose in Sibi Malayil’s epic film, ‘Kireedam’ released in 1989 later went on to be known by this screen name forever. Sibi Malayil was looking for a fresh villain when he came across Mohanraj who was then working as a central government employee as Enforcement Assistant Officer. The rest has been history. Kireedam script writer Lohitadas was equally impressed with Sibi Malayil’s finding as Mohanraj’s 6 feet 2 inches in height and over 100 kilo weight was found to be appropriate for the antagonist role in Kireedam.
Mohanraj also donned the villain role in Chenkol, sequel to Kireedam. In fact, Mohanraj made his debut in K Madhu’s ‘Moonnaam Mura’. But it was his second film, Kireedam which catapulted him to fame. Later, the supervillain proved that he could don comical roles in films like ‘Hello’ which saw him along with Mohanlal. He went on to act in more than 300 films which includes several hit films in Tamil and Telugu film industry too.
For quite some time, Mohanraj has been battling a slew of health issues. A few years ago, Mohanraj was injured during the shooting of a Telugu film which led to serious injuries to his leg. During 2019, Mohanraj was admitted at General Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram for more than a month for treatment to varicose vein where he had difficulty in walking.
His frail looking photos taken from the General Hospital went on to become viral citing that he was having financial constraints. But his family denied this which also saw then AMMA general secretary Edavela Babu intervening. The last film Mohanraj acted in was in Mammootty film, Rorschach in 2022.