On returning from an overseas location of a Tamil movie two days back, Murali was admitted to the hospital with fever. The death was due to multiple organ failure, said the hospital sources.
The seasoned theatre personality, active in commercial and parallel film streams alike, had been functioning as the chairman of the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi since the Left government assumed office in 2006. He had been one of the founder-directors of the CPM-promoted Kairali TV.
Murali won the state award for the best actor thrice and the national award in 2001 for his performance in Malayalam movie Naithukaran. He acted in more than 200 films in south Indian languages, apart from dabbling in Hindi too.
Murali plunged into films and drama while working as a clerk in Kerala University. While contesting the LS election, he said politics was the ideal medium for social work, which he had been craving for. "There is no charm in modern-day politics," he had said.
