[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":239},["ShallowReactive",2],{"person-en-freddie-silva":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"artistId":6,"birthYear":7,"body":8,"born":202,"description":203,"died":204,"era":205,"extension":206,"heroImage":207,"imageCredit":208,"imageLicense":209,"imageSource":210,"meta":211,"navigation":212,"notable":213,"path":214,"roles":215,"seo":217,"sources":218,"stem":237,"translated":212,"url":221,"__hash__":238},"peopleEn\u002Fen\u002Fpeople\u002Ffreddie-silva.md","Freddie Silva",50,1938,{"type":9,"value":10,"toc":194},"minimark",[11,15,18,23,26,42,55,59,121,135,139,153,171,174,178,181,188,191],[12,13,14],"p",{},"A month before he died, a journalist named Revata Silva went looking for the most popular comedian in the history of Sinhala cinema. He did not find him in a mansion. He found him in a broken-down garage off Emmanuel Church Road in Rawatawatta, Moratuwa — the garage was the bedroom, the television room and the kitchen — talking in a weak voice, limping slightly, living on a two-thousand-rupee pension from the Film Corporation and monthly gifts from a Muslim businessman who had seen his plight on television. \"Believe me,\" Freddie Silva said, \"there are days when I have nothing to eat.\"",[12,16,17],{},"He had appeared in some three hundred of the eight hundred and fifty films made in the first fifty years of Sinhala cinema. Later counts put the total higher still — English Wikipedia says over four hundred, the Sinhala article over four hundred and fifty — and no two sources agree, which is itself part of the story of an industry that kept no proper records of the people who carried it.",[19,20,22],"h2",{"id":21},"bar-bar-bar","Bar Bar Bar",[12,24,25],{},"He was born in 1938 at Puwakaramba, Moratuwa, the only child of an overseer in the Moratuwa Urban Council and a devoted member of the Salvation Army. Sources disagree on the date: most give 18 May 1938, while the Sinhala Wikipedia article and one field of the English infobox give 6 February. His birth name is also unsettled — it appears variously as Halpeliyanage Morris Joseph de Silva and as Haupe Liyanage Athukorala Morris Joseph Ranabahu. He was not much interested in school, and was punished for it. What he wanted to do was sing and dance at parties.",[12,27,28,29,33,34,37,38,41],{},"A party is what made him. In the late 1950s a relative took him to a birthday party for Sir John Kotelawala, where he performed ",[30,31,32],"strong",{},"බාර් බාර් බාර්"," ",[35,36,22],"em",{},", a comic song written by Alanson Mendis, with a dance. He told the story for the rest of his life. The crowd danced with him; the Premier asked him, \"",[35,39,40],{},"Ey kollo, umbe kakul wala spring hai koralada?","\" — boy, have you got springs fitted to your legs? — and then, hearing that the young man was looking for work, said he was fit for nothing but singing, and wrote him a letter of introduction.",[12,43,44,45,33,48,51,52,54],{},"Freddie took the letter to Livy Wijemanne at Radio Ceylon. His first recording was ",[30,46,47],{},"මොට්ටපාල",[35,49,50],{},"Mottapala",". He then re-cut ",[35,53,22],{}," with music by P. L. A. Somapala, and it worked.",[19,56,58],{"id":57},"the-satirical-song","The satirical song",[12,60,61,62,33,65,68,69,33,72,68,75,33,78,68,81,33,84,68,87,33,90,93,94,33,97,100,101,104,105,33,108,68,111,93,114,33,117,120],{},"What he did next has no real precedent in Sinhala music. Working with the lyricist Premakeerthi de Alwis, Freddie Silva built a genre: the comic song that is actually about something. ",[30,63,64],{},"ආරොන් මාමා",[35,66,67],{},"Aron Mama",", ",[30,70,71],{},"පාන් කිරිත්තා",[35,73,74],{},"Pan Kiritta",[30,76,77],{},"නෑදෑයෝ",[35,79,80],{},"Nedeyo",[30,82,83],{},"හඳ මාමා",[35,85,86],{},"Handa Mama",[30,88,89],{},"කැකිල්ලෙ රජ්ජුරුවෝ",[35,91,92],{},"Kekille Rajjuruwo"," and ",[30,95,96],{},"පරණ කෝට්",[35,98,99],{},"Parana Coat",", from the film ",[35,102,103],{},"Lokuma Hinawa",", are funny on the surface and, underneath, commentary on social injustice — on the useless relative, the incompetent king, the man with one coat. To these belong ",[30,106,107],{},"බොරු කකුල් කාරයෝ",[35,109,110],{},"Boru Kakul Karayo",[35,112,113],{},"Gini Bola Bola",[30,115,116],{},"අලුත් කලාවක්",[35,118,119],{},"Aluth Kalawak",".",[12,122,123,124,33,127,130,131,134],{},"Nobody called him a classical singer, and he never claimed to be one. But the song generally taken as the summit of his singing career is ",[30,125,126],{},"මන්නාරම් පිටි වැල්ලේ",[35,128,129],{},"Mannaram Piti Welle",", better known as ",[35,132,133],{},"Kundumani"," — and of that one it was said that any Carnatic pundit would have gasped, because he sang it perfectly.",[19,136,138],{"id":137},"into-the-films","Into the films",[12,140,141,142,145,146,33,149,152],{},"The cinema came to him in 1963. He was sharing a room with H. R. Jothipala and Roy de Silva at Quarry Road, Dehiwala, and the three of them sang at parties for a living. Through friends he was introduced to K. A. W. Perera, then co-directing ",[35,143,144],{},"Suhada Sohoyuro"," with L. S. Ramachandran. His debut was a dance on a beach, singing ",[30,147,148],{},"දිය රැල්ල වෙරළේ හැපී හැපී",[35,150,151],{},"Diya Rella Werale Hapi Hapi",". He was given a comic character, did it well, and, as he put it, \"then onwards I automatically became a comedian.\"",[12,154,155,156,159,160,163,164,166,167,170],{},"Almost uniquely among Sinhala screen comedians, he sang his own playback. Two songs by L. M. Perera and one occasion in ",[35,157,158],{},"Lasanda"," where Jothipala sang for him are the recorded exceptions. He could also act straight when asked: ",[35,161,162],{},"Sekaya"," (1965), ",[35,165,158],{}," (1974), and above all ",[35,168,169],{},"Sukiri Kella"," (1975), in which he played a boy with a mental disability and prepared by living with such a boy in Koralawella. He counted that as his best work.",[12,172,173],{},"By the 1980s no producer wanted to make a film without him, for fear it would flop. Of the twenty-six Sinhala films released in 1992, he was in fifteen. He produced two films himself. Sarasaviya, the main Sinhala film weekly, gave him its once-in-a-lifetime Ranathisara award in 1989.",[19,175,177],{"id":176},"the-way-down","The way down",[12,179,180],{},"He earned a great deal and kept none of it. \"I didn't have even five minutes of rest those days,\" he told Revata Silva. \"Dubbing to shooting and shooting to dubbing. From this studio to that. It was a wonderful time. I earned money, but never saved. I ate and drank. Wherever we went, there was liquor.\"",[12,182,183,184,187],{},"He dated his own decline to the murder of Vijaya Kumaratunga in 1988, his friend and co-star in nearly ten films. He remembered seeing Vijaya's face in the accident ward and collapsing into the arms of Vincent Karu. \"That marked the decline of our cinema. That's the way of life — ",[35,185,186],{},"thiyanakota hondai, nethi daata ivarai",".\" When you have it, it's good; when it's gone, it's over.",[12,189,190],{},"Freddie Silva died on 29 October 2001. Accounts of the place differ — Siddamulla, Piliyandala, in the English sources; Rawatawatta, Moratuwa, in the Sinhala. His death was not treated as news. Sarasaviya, which had crowned him twelve years earlier, gave him a single page.",[12,192,193],{},"His was not a solitary fate. Jothipala, Clarence Wijewardena, Milton Mallawarachchi, Milton Perera, M. S. Fernando and C. T. Fernando all died in versions of the same story, and Revata Silva's obituary drew the conclusion plainly: a country that had been entertained without limit had given nothing back. The songs, at least, survived him. They are still funny, and they are still about something.",{"title":195,"searchDepth":196,"depth":196,"links":197},"",2,[198,199,200,201],{"id":21,"depth":196,"text":22},{"id":57,"depth":196,"text":58},{"id":137,"depth":196,"text":138},{"id":176,"depth":196,"text":177},"18 May 1938","The comedian who sang: a Moratuwa boy whose satirical songs with Premakeerthi de Alwis made a nation laugh, and who died forgotten in a garage a mile from where he was born.","29 October 2001","1950s-1990s","md","\u002Fimages\u002Fpeople\u002Ffreddie-silva.webp","CM HewMac","CC BY-SA 4.0","https:\u002F\u002Fcommons.wikimedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFile:Freddie_Silva_a_Sri_Lankan_Comedian.jpg",{},true,false,"\u002Fen\u002Fpeople\u002Ffreddie-silva",[216],"Singer",{"title":5,"description":203},[219,222,225,228,231,234],{"title":220,"url":221},"Freddie Silva — Wikipedia","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FFreddie_Silva",{"title":223,"url":224},"ෆ්‍රෙඩී සිල්වා — සිංහල විකිපීඩියා","https:\u002F\u002Fsi.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F%E0%B7%86%E0%B7%8A%E2%80%8D%E0%B6%BB%E0%B7%99%E0%B6%A9%E0%B7%93_%E0%B7%83%E0%B7%92%E0%B6%BD%E0%B7%8A%E0%B7%80%E0%B7%8F",{"title":226,"url":227},"Freddie Silva: He took our breath away and we did not care — Revata Silva, InfoLanka (2002)","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.infolanka.com\u002Forg\u002Fsrilanka\u002Fpeople\u002F18.htm",{"title":229,"url":230},"Freddie Silva — National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka","http:\u002F\u002Fwww.nfc.gov.lk\u002Fartist\u002Ffreddie-silva-138\u002F",{"title":232,"url":233},"It's 10 years after Freddie left us — Sarasaviya, 27 October 2011","https:\u002F\u002Fweb.archive.org\u002Fweb\u002F20180505000610\u002Fhttp:\u002F\u002Fwww.sarasaviya.lk\u002F2011\u002F10\u002F27\u002F_art.asp?fn=sa11102716&pn=16",{"title":235,"url":236},"Freddie's fries — Sunday Times, 12 January 1997","http:\u002F\u002Fsundaytimes.lk\u002F970112\u002Fplus4.html","en\u002Fpeople\u002Ffreddie-silva","wx3H2i1Kqj3fWEYF-l_Ctw8TjTJ325Lz7141V85Tm_U",1787999331742]