THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Actor Mohanraj, the 69-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 on Friday at his ancestral home, Chandra Bhavan
Mohanraj is survived by his wife Usha (Hudco, Chennai) and daughters, Jaishma (M Tech student, Canada) and Kavya (Fashion Designing and Communication student, Chennai). He was on the ventilator for four days and was later shifted to his home at Kanjiramkulam where he breathed his last.
His family members told TNIE that apart from having Parkinson's disease, Mohanraj was recently affected with a stroke. He had undergone treatment for Parkinson's disease at Apollo Hospital, Chennai. Later he told his family that he wanted to spend his last years with his brothers, Chandran (Assistant Commissioner, Sales Tax), Sivaprasad (Retd Dysp), Jayakumar (Retd municipal secretary) and Premlal (Thiruvananthapuram Corporation Office). Son of late Sukumaran Nadar and late Pankajakshi, Mohanraj was the second son.
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.