Malayalam superstar Mohanlal became the first actor in Kerala to have crossed one million facebook fans. Lal, who completes his 35 years of acting career on Wednesday, was also the first actor from the south to have his Facebook account verified by the FB authorities.
The complete actor, as his fans call him, created his profile on June 3, 2012 making things easier for his admirers to get in touch with him. Within a short span of time the page caught on with young minds in the social media with an average increase of around 8000-10,000 likes per day.
With 1,011,929 likes as on Wednesday, Lal is far ahead of his nearest competitor Mammootty whose page has got 783,704 likes. “Gratitude... For all the support and love I have received through Facebook. My heartfelt Thanks to all my well wishers!!!” Lal wrote in a post on Tuesday. He has also linked his page to his own website (thecompleteactor.com).
Lal, who has acted in more than 300 Malayalm films, completes his 35 years of acting career on Wednesday. His first shoot took place on 4 September 1978 in front of his house in Mudavanmugal for the film Thiranottam. However as luck would have it, the film was never released. Lal got his first break into movies in 1980 when he acted as the antagonist in Manjil Virinja Pookkal which became a major hit. Since then he has glittered on the silver screen handling a variety of characters with a rare versatility and genius.
The stardom of Mohanlal is being re-affirmed in many of the surveys conducted by various agencies at various times. He was chosen by CNN-IBN as the most popular Keralite ever in an online survey conducted in 2008. He was also selected as the "Best Actor of the Decade” in the popular choice section of a survey conducted by HindiFilmNews.com. An online survey conducted by Outlook India chose him as the "Most Influential Indian 2013 from Kerala".
The actor, who has won four national film awards and nine Kerala state film awards, was also honoured with Padma Shri in 2001 and the title of Lieutenant colonel by the Indian Army in 2009.