Vijaya Nandasiri

Born on 6 May 1944 in Maharagama as the third in a family with seven siblings,[4] he has two elder brothers, two younger brothers and two younger sisters.[6] His father was Ilukpitiya Mudiyanselage Simon Singho who worked in the food department. His mother, Don Caroline Mabel Senadheera, worked at the Department of Health and later at the Colombo General Hospital.[6] Nandasiri attended the Vidyakara Vidyalaya in Maharagama. He had an ambition to join military because he was a sub-lieutenant in the school cadets. Nandasiri was briefly a catering officer at the Katunayake Airport in the late-'60s as his acting career developed.

Nandasiri married fellow actress Devika Mihirani in 1989.[7] She holds the record to be the main actress in Sri Lanka's first ever tele-drama, Dimuthu Muthu.[8][9] Their first encounter was at Sudarshi Visual Arts Center, where Mihirani studied for dancing. Nandasiri was the one who invited Mihirani for the drama Subha Saha Yasa in 1974.[10] She was studying at Anula Vidyalaya, Nugegoda. He joined her at the Chitrasena Kalaya in Kollupitiya and learned dance from Vajira.[6] Devika's sister Sriyani Perera is married to actor Lal Kularatne.

They have two children, Navanjana and Rasanjana Suchitra.[11] His daughter lives in Australia and son in America.[12] Navanjana was born on 13 November 1989.[13] Navanjana is married to businessman Chaminda Gunaratne and they married on 28 December 2012 in Hilton Colombo.[14] His son Rasanjana started to continue his father's legacy by making mark in stage dramas, where his father previously acted.[15]

Nandasiri's early television credits include K.A.W. Perera's Gamana and Pramada Wedei. He was later a producer of the teledrama Humalaya. He won the Award for the Best Comedian for his role in Sikka.

The turning point of his performance was the Nonawaruni Mahathwaruni (which is a re-make of the popular Hindi sitcom Shriman Shrimati produced by Adhikari Brothers) sitcom directed by Jayaprakash Sivagurunathan.[6] He became famous as a comedy actor with the character of Gunadasa Premachandra in the sitcom Nonawaruni Mahathwaruni and later through Yes Boss as Senarath Dunusinghe.[11] He also acted in numerous teledramas and sitcoms.[24] He also hosted children's quiz program Punchi Pahe Man which was telecasted on Sirasa TV.

He first came to prominence from the movie Ran Kenda. In 1973, Vijaya made his maiden cinematic appearance in the film Matara Achchi directed by Sathischandra Edirisinghe.[6] In 1976, Nandasiri met K.A.W. Perera while staging T. B. Ilangaratne's Shailasanaya. Perera gave him his first film role in the movie Nedayo. The character was a blind person who sings the song Sanasum Susuman Pavila which is still a popular song among people, as his starring in the scene was absolutely realistic. Some of the films with his dramatic roles include Yasa Isuru, Sandakada Pahana, Bengali Walalu, Sasara and Rail Para.[11][29] He won The Best Actor award for his role of the match maker in Sikuru Hathe and later in 2011 as the Best Comedian for King Hunther.[30]

Nandasiri was suffering from diabetes over a long period of time. Owing to a wound on his leg, due to severe infection, the leg was amputated and from that point, he was using an artificial leg.[23]

On 8 August 2016, Nandasiri died while being taken to the Kalubowila Teaching Hospital after suffering from a cardiac arrest.[31][32][33]

• Vijaya Nandasiri's Biography in Sinhala Cinema Database
• “සුහද කොකා” සමඟ ඔබ හමුවට එන විජය නන්දසිරි
• ඔබ මළ පුවත ඇත්තක් වූ බොරුවක්ය
• මනමේ කුමරු මෙන්ම ජසයා වූයේ ද ඔහුය - සිනහව අතරින් මතුවුණු කඳුළ
• නොකියාම ගියේ ඔබ නොගොස් බැරි නිසාමද?
• විජය මතක සේයා
• විජයගේ වියෝව සැලවී කළුබෝවිල රෝහලට පැමිණි හිතවතුන් කිහිපදෙනෙක්
• අවසන් මොහොතේ ගරු බුහුමන්
• විජය සමුගෙන මාස දෙකයි පින්කම් රැසක්
• විජය වෙන්ව වසරයි
• දුරු රටක තනි වූ මිතුරන්ගේ ශෝකය
• විජය - දේවිකා දියණි නවාංජනා විවාහ ගිවිස ගනී
• ‘Sri Gajaba’ at Elphinstone