S. V. Sahasranamam
Sahasranamam as seen inPolicekaran Magal (1962)
Born	Singanallur Venkataramana Iyer Sahasranamam (1913-11-29)29 November 1913 Singanallur,Coimbatore
Died	19 February 1988(1988-02-19) (aged 74)
Other names	S. V. S.
Occupation(s)	Actor, director
Years active	1935–1988
Children	5

Singanallur Venkataramana Iyer Sahasranamam^[1] (29 November 1913 – 19 February 1988), also known asS. V. S.,^[2] was an Indian actor and director. Primarily a theatre actor, he also worked in over 200 films, mainly inTamil cinema.

Sahasranamam was born on 29 November 1913 atSinganallur.^[3] He was the fourth child born to Venkatraman and Parvathi.^[2] Because of his interest in acting, he left his home at an early age to join the Madurai Sri Balashanmuganandha Sabha, a popular theatre group, which was later renamed T. K. S. Nataka Sabha.^[4]

Several years after he joined T. K. S. Nataka Sabha, Sahasranamam started his own theatre group titled "Seva Stage". With that, he staged several popular plays such asKangal,Irulum Oliyum andVadivelu Vaathiyar. These plays were later adapted into feature films and were commercially successful. He also adapted the novels of writers such asB. S. Ramiah, T. Janakiraman and Ku Pa Rajagopalan, and made them into feature films.^[4] Although Sahasranamam was also successful in cinema, having acted in over 200 films since debuting in that field withMenaka (1935),^[5] he always considered theatre his main interest.^[6]

Sahasranamam won theSangeet Natak Akademi Award for Acting (Tamil) in 1967,^[7] and received theSangeetha Kalasikhamani award in 1980 by the Indian Fine Arts Society, Chennai.^[8]

Sahasranamam's son S. V. S. Kumar is also an actor.^[9][10]

Between March 1974 and February 1988, Sahasranamam had suffered more than five heart attacks. He had chosen the artists for the playNandha Vilakku, authored by novelist/dramatist Krishnamani, and asked them to come for a rehearsal on 21 February. But he suffered a heart attack on 19 February 1988 and died at 4:30 pmIST.^[6][5]

• Rajadhyaksha, Ashish;Willemen, Paul (1998) [1994].Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema.British Film Institute andOxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-563579-5.

• S. V. Sahasranamam atIMDb

• 1913 births
• 1988 deaths
• 20th-century Indian male actors
• Actors in Tamil theatre
• Indian male stage actors
• Male actors in Tamil cinema
• Actors from Coimbatore
• Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award

• CS1 Tamil-language sources (ta)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• EngvarB from November 2020
• Use dmy dates from November 2020
• Articles with hCards