Tiger Prabhakar (30 March 1948 â 25 March 2001) was an Indian actor who predominantly worked in Kannada and Telugu cinema. He has also acted in a few Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi films. He was also known as Kannada Prabhakar.
Prabhakar started his career by appearing in small negative roles in Kannada movies and went on to become one of the most sought after villains in Kannada and Telugu movies during the late 70s and 80s. He graduated to playing full-fledged action hero roles in Kannada movies 1983-84 onward and remained one of the most sought after heroes until 1993-94. He made a successful pair with all the top Kannada heroines of the time like Jayamala, Aarathi, Bharathi, Lakshmi and Jayanthi. Prabhakar has also directed more than 10 films in Kannada in which he starred as the hero.
Prabhakar's unique acting style, his physique helped him become extremely popular amongst the masses. He excelled in action sequences. He even excelled in his comedic timing and excelled in many movies in comedy scenes as is seen in many movies where he played Anant Nag's friend in movies like Nanna Devaru, Dhairya Lakshmi, Gayathri Maduve. He would wear a cross to the sets, being a Christian but would be asked to hide or remove it sometimes.
Prabhakar introduced Kanglish, a mix of Kannada and English dialogues, to Kannada movies.
Tiger Prabhakar died on 25 March 2001 at Mallya Hospital in Bangalore, Karnataka, at the age of 52. He died due to multi-organ failure, primarily kidney failure, after a prolonged illness.
In later interviews, his son Vinod Prabhakar clarified that several rumours circulated about the actor's illness and death, including reports claiming amputation due to gangrene. However, the family stated that these claims were incorrect and that he died due to complications from illness leading to organ failure.