Wijekoon Mudiyanselage Piyadasa (22 October 1940 – 9 February 2003 as පියදාස විජේකෝන්) was a

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

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and

character actor A character actor is a supporting actor who plays unusual, interesting, or eccentric characters.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrieved 7 August 2014, "..a breed of actor who has the ability to b ...

. His career spanned over 42 years with 140 films and he played a wide variety of roles in that time. Perhaps one of his most notable was as a

Police Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia In Australian police forces, the rank of inspector is generally the ne ...

in ''Siripala Saha Ranmenike'' (1977). This was an unusual role as most of his roles were negative up to that time.

Personal life

Wijekoon attended

Narahenpita Narahenpita is a municipal ward of Colombo. Located at the South-Eastern corner and served by the Kelani Valley Railway Line The Kelani Valley railway line in Sri Lanka, covering the breadth of Colombo District. The line is owned, maintained, ...

Vidyawardena School. His son Priyantha Wijekoon is also an actor.

Acting career

He made his film debut uncredited in a song sequence of the film ''Sirakaruwa'' in 1957. He got his first major role in A. S. Nagarajan's ''Purusha Ratnaya'' (1959) playing the brother of the heroine. It was Nagarajan who suggested he stylize his name as 'Piyadasa Wijekoon'. After Nagarajan,

Robin Tampoe Rabindra Coomaraswamy (29 December 1930 – 22 March 2000), popularly known by his stage name Robin Tampoe, was a film maker of Sri Lankan cinema. One of the earliest pillars in Sinhala cinema, Tampoe hailed from the Sri Lankan Tamil community ...

took Wijekoon under his wing and began giving him roles in his films. Under Tampoe's guidance Wijekoon shaved his hair and played a villain for the first time in ''Suhada Divi Piduma'' (1961). This role proved popular and Wijekoon was flooded with villain roles from then on. Some of his popular stage dramas include ''Siwamma Dhanapala'', ''Apuru Yahaluwo'' and ''Manape''. Through the 1960s and 1970s, Wijekoon's performances in films revolved around playing henchman and thug type characters who got into and lost fights with the hero. A notable exception was ''Siripala Saha Ranmenike'' where he played a positive character though still at odds with the anti-hero

Ravindra Randeniya Liyanage Boniface Walter Perera (born 5 June 1945), popularly known by his stage name Ravindra Randeniya, is a Sri Lankan actor and former politician. He rose to fame in Lester James Peries's film ''Desa Nisa'' in 1972, and was a popular actor d ...

. In the 1980s and 1990s as he grew fatty and older Wijekoon began to take comedic roles and stopped doing fighting roles.

Filmography

References

External links

Sri Lanka Sinhala Films Database – Piyadasa Wijekoon
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wijekoon, Piyadasa 1948 births 2003 deaths Sri Lankan male film actors Sinhalese male actors