Malayalam actor and politician Innocent passed away at the age of 75 at 10.30 pm on Sunday, March 26, due to COVID-19 related respiratory issues leading to organ failure and cardiac arrest. He might have had top-billing in only a handful of films but his sense of comic timing and razor sharp wit delivered in rib-tickling Thrissurian slang made him a scene-stealer in every film he was part of. He also wore many hats, first as an entrepreneur and later as a politician who fought an electoral battle and was elected as Member of Parliament representing Chalakudy constituency. He also served as the President of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists for many years.
Innocent, also a cancer survivor, revelled in narrating funny anecdotes and wrote light-hearted books about his illness. He was in a critical condition for the past few days and admitted at the Lakeshore Hospital in Kochi.
Innocent's mere presence on-screen or off-screen and mannerisms were enough to evoke laughter making him an inevitable part of more than 700 films. From being slapstick silly and lighthearted to sarcastic, shameless and quirky, there was no type of humour he couldn't pull off. Like every good comedian he knew how to laugh at himself, stretching the limits with brutal honesty and an element of unpredictability, qualities that endeared him in the hearts of Malayalis.
Known for the effortless humour he brought to the screen, Innocent has played a variety of characters from villain to hero to supporting roles. His Mathaichan in the Ramji Rao series, the ‘celibate’ Swamyettan who gets married secretly in Godfather, Unnithan who runs scared of ghosts in Manichithrathazhu, the saintly Warrier in Devasuram, the supportive Balettan in Nadodikattu are but some of the memorable characters. Many of the films may now have been forgotten but the jokes and the comic dialogues have become popular memes that are still remembered, mimicked and adored. The scene in Kilukkam in which he reads the number of a winning lottery ticket that he bought is perhaps the most quoted one of the lot: “adichu mole (I won, dear)” and the passing out after it, followed by a hollow laugh.
On and off for 15 years, between 2003 and 2018, Innocent held the post of president of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (A.M.M.A.). He spoke of his health issues and his responsibilities as a Member of Parliament as reasons to quit. Innocent had won from the Chalakudy constituency in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, as an independent candidate supported by the Left. He made news by speaking in Malayalam in the Parliament, pressing the need to make healthcare more affordable for common people. But during the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, he lost to the Congress candidate, Benny Behanan.
His film career began in the early 1970s but most of them were uncredited minor roles. A single dialogue in one of his early appearances, in the film Soorya Daham, is a textbook example of the brand of humour that he is known for. The scene - Innocent caught stealing a coconut is asked, "What is this/" to which he answers in his trademark singsong accent: “ithu thengayalle? (Isn't this a coconut?).”
Comedy in Malayalam cinema, until then, was most often a parallel track made memorable with performances of veterans like Adoor Bhasi, Sreelatha, SP Pillai and Bahadur. Innocent brought a new style to comedy, letting a myriad of expressions cross his face in a matter of moments, and rendering dialogues in a musical dialect, courtesy his place of birth. Irinjalakuda – a town tucked deep into Thrissur district – that he is proud to speak of every time he makes an introduction. On stage or recorded programmes, he was always the Irinjalakudakkaran (native of Irinjalakuda) Innocent. He brought in his native land and its dialect in all his narratives.
The 80s was a time he turned to production to give critically acclaimed movies like Mohan’s Vida Parayum Munpe, Bharathan’s Ormakkayi and KG George’s Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback. He also wrote stories for films like Pavam IA Ivachan and Keerthana, playing lead in both. In later years, he also occasionally worked in other languages, Hindi, Tamil and Kannada among them.
Innocent had proved long ago that he was not limited to doing comedy. In Mazhavilkavadi (1989) he played the merciless father scheming to separate his daughter from her lover, breaking his earlier promise to let them marry. He won the Kerala State award for Second Best Actor for the character. In 1990, he played the title character in the satire Dr Pasupathy, directed by Shaji Kailas. He was cast as a default character in movies of Sathyan Anthikad, Priyadarshan and the director duo Siddique-Lal. In their 1993 film Kabuliwala, he and Jagathy Sreekumar (another veteran comedian) put out a heart-wrenching performance playing two rag pickers who drew comedy from pain.
He was active throughout his career, missing in action only in the year 2020, due to ill health. Last year he appeared in the films Makal and Kaduva. In 2023 Innocent had landed a role in the upcoming film Paachuvum Albuthavilakum.